Check Every Shadow
by Wafflesauce
Summary: Seven years after Arnold disappears into the jungles of Central America, a plot is set in motion that could put his friends back home in danger. Luckily, there's someone unexpected in his corner, ready to take on the world to help him.
1. Chapter 1: Evasion

His lungs burned, his mouth was dry from breathing hard for so long, but he continued to run. They were behind him. He wasn't sure how much of a lead he had, but whatever it was, it wasn't enough. He had to escape, had to hide, had to avoid his pursuers at all costs. Sprinting around the corner of a building, his fatigued legs faltered, and he nearly fell. By the time he reached the other end of the alleyway his legs gave out again and he crashed into a dumpster parked beside the sidewalk.

On instinct, he rolled himself under the dumpster and tried to quiet his heavy breathing. The loud footfalls that had been getting ever closer soon ground to a halt mere inches from his face. Ten shoes came into view from his vantage point beneath the dumpster, and he could do nothing but wait and see what happened next.

"He went this way," spoke a gravelly voice in a breathless pant, "I'm sure of it."

The hidden young man's wide and panicked eyes narrowed to a half-lidded glare of determination. Yes, self-preservation was important, but it had to come second today. There was a particular item buttoned securely into his shirt pocket that was far more important than his own personal safety right now. If he got another chance, it had to be taken care of before anything else. An idea struck him. It didn't feel like a good idea, honestly, but he didn't have time to wait for for good ideas to come along. It was risky, but it was a move they might not expect of him, and that was the only advantage he could imagine having over his adversaries at this moment. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a creased and battered envelope.

Taking a furtive glance up, the silent observer saw five pairs of feet near enough that he could reach out and touch them. Each pair was restless, their owners clearly not able to decide what direction they should be pointed next. The young man's breath came slightly easier at that sight. They didn't know where to look, which means they didn't know they were right on top of him. It was only a small moment of minor victory, but he had learned to take comfort in those when he could. A tiny grin of relief touched the corners of his mouth.

"You two, that way! The rest with me!" shouted another of the men, the edge of authority in his voice. He was clearly used to being in charge, and the way he gave orders left no question that they were going to be obeyed. All of the shoes took off down the street, heading in two directions. This left their earlier route unguarded. From under the dumpster came a sigh of relief. He wasn't safe yet, but he had bought time, and that just might be enough.

He returned his attention to the envelope in his hands. It was addressed and stamped already, ready to mail the folded letter within. The letter was unfinished, as it had been for all the months he carried it, but he had no pen or pencil now to correct that. Besides, if he couldn't decide what he wanted to say then, he wasn't likely to find the words right now. Hands still shaking from adrenaline and fatigue, he reached into his pocket, and retrieved a tiny rectangular item. He looked at it for a second or two before dropping it into the open envelope. Sealing the envelope proved to be an unexpected problem for his dry tongue. After several tries he finally managed to summon enough saliva to get it done.

The man beneath the dumpster waited several more seconds, catching his breath, needing to let the acid sensation in his legs subside to a level where they'd at least consider listening to his commands again. Taking one last deep breath, the young man rolled from out into the light and tried to come up running, with only partial success. His first few steps were weak and he faltered, his abused muscles clearly not happy about getting such a short reprieve, but he steadied himself and took off back the way he had come. He knew what he needed next, and he had seen it just a minute or two before. Again the desperate man reflected on his plan. It really was a terrible plan, too many things could go wrong. Could it put others in danger? Could he risk that? Head buzzing with indecision, he slowed down to think about this. On the other hand, if this did work, it would give him an excuse to take the long delayed trip home. A genuine smile touched his face at the thought. Still, could he justify the risk?

The sound of shouts and running feet coming in his direction brought the time for contemplation to an abrupt end. It had to be done, and it had to be done now. Adrenaline hit him like a bolt of lightning, masking the burning in his muscles and giving him the strength to sprint once again. He ran as fast as he could down the sidewalk, and heard shouting that confirmed he had been spotted once again. This was a bit earlier than he had hoped, but nothing a bit of improvisation couldn't fix.

He stumbled and fell hard against a sturdy city mailbox, stopping to pant for breath for a full second before he regained his footing and took off at a sprint again. He had a lead on the men, but he was outnumbered and tired. Yet he grinned to himself as he dashed down another alley with five sets of feet stomping along at what should have been alarming proximity.

Despite the burning ache in every muscle of his body, his smile grew bigger as he continued to run. Clearly none of the men at his heels had paid any attention to the small, ordinary sound of a mailbox door squeaking closed.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	2. Chapter 2: Meanwhile, In Hillwood

It was after midnight, and Helga G. Pataki was laying on Arnold's bed and staring through the skylight at the starlit night. She listened to the sounds of the boarding house below, recognizing even the faint ones like a song she'd heard a thousand times before. This boarding house felt like home for her in a way nowhere else really had. It had an energy to it, a life of its own. She reflected upon this, wondering if very old buildings kept a little bit of every occupant who lived inside them over the years, like a single soul slowly being woven from a thousand living threads as they pass through its halls like lifeblood through the veins of-

She clicked on the bedside lamp and grabbed a small pink book off of the shelf beside it. A few minutes of scratching, and the thoughts spinning around in her mind were securely noted for later, when she could make better use of it. As it was, it was late and she was clearly too tired to keep her metaphors from spinning out of control. This was a trick she learned long ago, to get the thoughts out on paper so her brain could take a rest. Putting away the book and turning the lamp back off, she once again lay down on Arnold's bed.

In her mind she still thought of it as Arnold's bed, though she knew that wasn't really true anymore. He had been gone for about seven years now, and she hadn't heard from him in at least the past three. Poor, orphaned, abandoned Arnold had found a journal containing notes and maps, which he believed could lead him to find his long-lost parents, who had gone missing in the jungles of San Lorenzo just before his second birthday.

Arnold had devised and executed a plan to get his class a field trip to San Lorenzo, just so he could look for his missing parents there. Helga smiled a bit sadly to herself at the recollection. Helga was secretly quite proud of this little development in the ol' Football Head's skill-set, she must have been rubbing off on him. It was the part afterward that made her gut twist a bit every time she thought of it. Arnold's plan worked, despite all odds his parents were alive, and he did find them. She felt so happy for their reunion that she wanted to cry with joy. At the same time, she knew what this meant, that Arnold would be staying to live with them as he had always dreamed of doing, and this made her want to cry even harder.

She didn't cry. Well, she did cry, quite a lot, but nobody saw her doing it. She had helped to find Arnold's parents, fought her way through a jungle for him, done everything she could to help her beloved boy. When that final moment came, every beat of her heart shouted at her to beg him to come back with her, she wanted to to open up to him about how deeply she loved him and that she meant every word this time. That's what she burned to do, but her lifelong instincts had taken over, as always.

"Sheesh, don't make a big deal of it, Football Head. Stay with your family, it's not like I need you around back home getting in my way all the time." She said this with her practiced bully scowl, then casually stalked away. With her back turned, Arnold couldn't see the tears pouring down her face, and it took all of her effort not to let her sobs be heard, or to let her shoulders shake and give away her secret anguish. She kept walking, all the way back to the bus that started her on her trip home. Though it never quite felt like home again.

The months following this were hard for Helga. She filled up stacks of little pink writing books with poems of loss, of ennui, of hopelessness, and of loneliness. However much her heart ached for him before, it was nothing compared to how it felt now. This time she had lost him for good, and she had never found the strength to just go to him and truly tell him how she felt. If only she had been brave enough to stick behind her single confession of love on that rooftop, rather than being coward and making up some lame excuse about "heat of the moment" and taking it all back. In the end, it seemed that even the Helga herself couldn't overcome the bully known as Helga G. Pataki.

Months later, she found solace in an unexpected place. On reflection, it was a place where it should have been expected, had she thought to look for it there. Arnold's Grandparents still ran the boarding house, and without their Grandson to help out with some of the more physical chores, they weren't having an easy time of it. Phil and Gertie tried not to let on how much of a hole Arnold had left in their lives, both emotional and practical, but two things were glaringly obvious to Helga's keen intuition. Arnold's Grandparents needed help, and they were kindred spirits. They were only people in the world who felt the pain of Arnold's departure with an intensity nearly matching her own. It wasn't long before she was drawn to them, both to get their support, and to give them hers.

In the beginning, Helga visited the Sunset Arms boarding house on occasion to give a friendly hello, and to ask if there was any news about Arnold. Early on, there usually was. It was almost always vague, and the key phrase "He's coming back," never seemed to come up. Eventually she stopped asking, as she couldn't stand to not hear those words anymore. Still, the more she visited, the more she wanted to visit. Helga had always rather liked Phil and Gertie, they were eccentric and interesting. She would stop by after school and help Gertie with a bit of cooking, or help Phil do a bit of maintenance on his proud old Packard. She had a way of getting the boarders to stay in line a bit better than Arnold ever could, and always seemed to get far less delays and excuses from them on rent day.

She wrote so many letters to Arnold. Some were mushy love letters. Some were just news from the neighborhood. Some were angry letters she wrote late at night when she was feeling especially abandoned. Some of the letters begged him to come back to her, and some told him how happy she was to know he was finally reunited with his parents. The one thing all these letters had in common was that they were all tucked neatly away in binders in the closet, unsent. It was easy to tell how far she had gotten into any given letter before losing her nerve. Some of them were finished letters, neatly addressed, sealed, and stamped. Some of them were just folded scraps of paper with a few abandoned lines written on them, and often residual crease marks from being crumpled up in a fit of frustration.

When she was fifteen years old, Arnold's Grandpa offered Helga a part time job helping out around the boarding house. She was already helping out anyway, and Phil said that if she was going to be doing work around the house, she was going to get paid something for it.

By age sixteen the Sunset Arms boarding house was the most comfortable place in the world for Helga. The rooftop had become her favorite writing spot, and she could be found up there most nights, if anyone was looking for her. Her Sister, Olga, had returned from college, and had her heart set on an acting career. She was in many ways a brilliant woman with a sickening number of talents. Somehow Olga just could not understand that acting was not among them. She was terrible, amazingly bad. It was the first thing she was ever a real failure at, as far as Helga could remember. But she kept at it, rather than any of the careers she was better suited for, and the strife in the Pataki household became unbearable as a result. Any excuse to avoid dealing with that was welcome in Helga's eyes.

Helga tried dating now again throughout high school, but it never seemed to work out for her. Within a date or two, she was already terminally bored with whatever boy had asked her out. They just never felt like a challenge, somehow, and that's what she needed. All those years, that's one thing her Arnold had never failed to offer to her, a challenge. These boys seemed to be falling all over themselves just to please her, and she could never work out why this would be. She still thought of Arnold daily, but had mostly moved past the intense heartache. Thinking of him now usually only brought small twinges of regret, and she had become a pro at brushing those aside by now.

When she was seventeen, Helga was the one to find Arnold's Grandmother collapsed in the boarding house entryway one Autumn evening. Gertie's mental state was always hard to truly pin down, since she was wildly eccentric even at her best. Though both Phil and Helga wanted to deny it, genuine senility had been creeping in for some time, and the signs were all there. Gertie didn't make it to the new year. She had lived a long and happy life, but all good things must come to an end.

Helga had a lot more practice keeping a strong front through her sorrows, compared to the more honest and open widower Gertie had left behind, and she did what she could to help him through his mourning. A few days after the funeral she asked the question that, when answered, brought both of them to tears yet again.

"What about your Son, and Grandson. Do Miles and Arnold know yet? Have… have you told them?" asked Helga, trying not to choke on the words.

Phil looked right into her eyes, staring there for the longest time, not wanting to answer. But he had to eventually. "I don't know. I sent them a letter, but I don't know if they got it. I don't know if they've gotten any of my letters these past few years. They stopped writing, Helga. They stopped writing back and I don't know why. I've been making up stories to tell Pookie all this time, so she wouldn't worry, and… and I couldn't tell you, I just couldn't. I know it was supposed to be your big secret, but I've always known you were sweet on our … our Short-man. I couldn't break this to you, I just didn't have it in me." The old man finally broke down sobbing again. "I'm sorry, please don't be angry, I just… If I admitted it to you, I'd… I'd have to admit it to myself. I couldn't do that."

Helga stared at him for a moment, a flash of anger sparking deep inside, fireworks going off inside her chest. It faded as quickly as it had come though, because she realized that she understood exactly how he must feel. To lose your child once, only to find and lose him again along with your grandson? The pain must be unbearable, and the only thing keeping it from eating him alive was the denial. He could still cling to the hope that maybe the letters just got lost in the mail, perhaps a bundle of them would show up at once. Maybe the phone would ring, Arnold and his parents having make the long trek to somewhere with a telephone to make the call. As long as he didn't ever admit to himself that it wasn't going to happen, maybe it could. He needed that hope for himself, and he had done what he could to share it with Helga too.

Helga hugged Phil, saying nothing. Words weren't going to help anyway, and at this moment even she didn't have the right ones. Later that night, Helga walked up to the attic room, Arnold's room. It looked like she had always remembered, though dustier. It had been left largely untouched, and she suddenly realized it was for basically the same reason Phil hadn't told her about losing contact with Arnold's family. If his room was still here, waiting for him, it meant he was coming back. He had to come back, because he had somewhere to come back to. It all made sense, if you can read the language of denial. The exhausted young woman fell upon the bed expecting tears to come again, but she was sound asleep before the squeak of the bedsprings had finished echoing in the silent room.

Helga woke late the following morning, to find a blanket thrown over her. She also found a note in Phil's usual nigh-illegible handwriting, written on the notepad that had last been spotted at Arnold's desk, simply stating, "I want to ask you something before you go today, please." Helga walked downstairs, finding Phil munching on a piece of toast at the dining table.

"How are you doing?" she inquired, smiling a bit.

The wily old coot smiled back, "Better, I think. It's been one heck of a week." He sighed and his features darkened for a moment, but he snapped back out of just as quickly. "Get a good night's sleep? I found the attic door open this morning, so brought you a blanket."

Helga blushed slightly, always feeling embarrassed when someone shows her kindness. "Thanks. I think it's the best sleep I've had in months. My house is just… chaos. All the arguing and yelling, too many Patakis under one roof seems to lead to misery." she gave a smirk, "That's part of the reason I'm here so much, it feels more like home than home."

Phil gave a genuine smile this time, no forcing required, and a certain sparkle seemed to enter his eye. "Funny you should mention that. I've been thinking about that attic room lately, and it's really time for someone to start living up there again. No reason to let a perfectly good room go to waste, after all."

Helga shuddered a bit. She had just come to understand why the room was never rented out, and this sudden announcement just felt out of place, wrong. It was blasphemy! Helga opened her mouth to object, but Phil continued speaking as if he hadn't noticed any reaction out of her.

"See, I've been thinking. I'm going to need more help around here. I've got one person on-staff already, but it's not really in the budget to give her much of a raise." he glanced at Helga and smirked for a moment. "But I get the distinct feeling that she might be interested in finding a new place to call home, and that I think I may have. I figure I could throw in, say, an attic apartment with rooftop access in exchange for a few more hours of help per week."

Helga stared at him, eyes huge, mouth agape. "Y… you're serious?"

"You bet I am!" replied Phil with a grin, pausing to wait for a reaction.

She was utterly still for two more seconds. Then Helga leapt up and started to sprint to the entryway.

"Hey, what are you doing?" asked the suddenly perplexed elder.

Helga turned around with the biggest smile he'd ever seen on her face. "I have to pack!"

Resurfacing from her memories, Helga snapped herself back to the present. She's a nineteen-year-old woman now, staring up at dark clouds rolling in as they begin to hide the stars away, starting to drift off to sleep in the bed that used to belong to the boy of her dreams. She chuckled to herself a bit at the irony of it, thinking not for the first time that while she had always dearly hoped to be sharing a bed with Arnold someday, this wasn't what she had in mind. Snuggled in a warm bed, listening to the soft rain that was just now starting to fall against the glass skylights, Helga G. Pataki drifted off to sleep.

This lasted just over two hours.

The sleeping woman's eyes snapped open as rain began to fall on her face.

"Criminy, another leak to fix?" was her first thought, though she didn't say it out loud. Looking up she saw that the skylight had just been opened, and a lean, shadowy figure was trying to climb down into the room. With so little light coming from the darkened sky above, it was hard to see that there was an occupant in the bed. The figure didn't see this, didn't seem to expect anyone to be in the room at all, and dropped quietly to the floor. He took a flashlight from out of his pocket and clicked it on.

The rest was a blur. As he clicked his flashlight on, the first thing the shadowy man saw was a scowling face with a single eyebrow across it approaching at a great speed. The second thing he noticed was that this face had a bit of a smile on it, because it was the face of someone who wasn't afraid of any stupid 3am intruder. The third thing was a woman's voice shouting "Say hello to Old Betsy!"

The fourth thing he noticed was that his face hurt quite a lot. Also the back of his head hurt, there seemed to be a dent in the wall behind him, and somehow he was looking up at that dent from the carpeted floor. The carpet was surprisingly comfortable, he noticed groggily, and spontaneously decided that it would be a lovely idea to take a nap right now.

The lights in the room clicked on, but the intruder's personal little world was quickly fading to back. Just before he lost consciousness completely, he heard one last thing.

"A... Arnold?"

* * *

**To be continued...**


	3. Chapter 3: Dawn

_Sluuurp_

Helga Pataki sat on the bed, slowly taking sips from the bottle of Yahoo soda in her hand, and staring at the man on the floor with an expression of utter neutrality. After attacking the intruder and realizing his identity, Helga had calmed down immediately. Arnold wasn't here, couldn't be here, yet here he was. Clearly if Arnold was lying on her floor, this was all a dream, and honestly this wasn't even a particularly weird one by her standards. Dazed, she had taken a leisurely stroll down to the kitchen and back to get a soda from the fridge. The dream had gotten kind of boring after she knocked Arnold out, and frankly she was a bit disappointed, so she sipped on her soda while she waited for the dream to either end or get interesting.

_Sluuurp_

She had to admit, this dream's version of her old flame wasn't half bad. He had grown taller, she guessed he was about the same height as herself now. He wore a flannel shirt, similar in color to his old favorite, but clearly not the same one. He looked lean and muscular, and his shoulders had definitely broadened, but he had a build like a swimmer or a runner, not a weightlifter. He wore denim pants, with a faded and worn look to them, and a few small tears and snags here and there. On his feet were old sneakers, also thoroughly broken-in. In this dream her imagination was clearly going for the rugged-Arnold look. Helga approved, and this thought put a small smile on her face.

_Sluuurp_

Above the neck it was surprising how little he had changed. His head still had its distinctive shape, and was bigger than average, but the rest of his body had grown into it somewhat. His hair was as wild as ever, though his ever-present undersized blue cap was missing. She frowned at this a bit, since even in her dreams he had always worn the hat. His face looked a bit more weathered and rugged than she remembered, though not in a displeasing way. He had a few days worth of stubble growing, such a light blond color that it didn't stand out unless you were looking for it. He also had a bruise starting to form on his cheek, but she knew exactly where that came from.

_Sluuurp_

Helga flexed the hand that she had punched Arnold with, trying to shake a bit of the soreness out of it. The only other thing of note was his backpack. It was similar in style to the typical packs he would have worn at school, except this one appeared to be handmade and constructed mostly of leather. Helga silently congratulated her subconscious on the level of detail it was packing into this dream. She wasn't going to approach Arnold though, because she knew that wouldn't work. It never worked. Whenever she dreamed of him since he left her life, she was never able to touch him. Something would always happen to prevent it, her dreaming mind's way of reminding her of the harsh realities. Sometimes he'd just disappear in a puff of smoke. Sometimes he would just always be a half inch out of reach no matter what she did. One time he turned into a dragon with the head of their old classmate, Lila Sawyer. That had been an especially odd night. Now she knew not to bother, it saved a bit of self-imposed heartache that way. Still, something felt different this time, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

_Sluuurp_

The Yahoo soda bottle had been completely empty for at least ten minutes now, but in her shocked state Helga didn't notice it at all. There was something itching at the back of her mind. Something she had thought to herself just didn't fit, but she was having trouble focusing on what it could have been. If only the pain in her hand would go away already, it was distracting. She looked down and could already see light bruises forming on her knuckles. Actually, that was interesting, she had never felt physical pain in a dream before. In fact, a self-administered pinch or slap across the face had always been her go-to test when she wanted to make sure she wasn't dreaming. Funny now that in this one oddly lucid dream, her hand would be causing her so much pain.

_Crash_

"Arnold!" Helga shouted as she suddenly leapt to her feet and ran to his crumpled form on the floor. She reached out and, after the slightest moment of hesitation, laid her hand on his face. She felt him. He was still here and she could feel the bristles of his stubble against her skin. She shook his head back and forth a little and called his name a few times. He stirred in his sleep, but didn't wake just yet. From the look of the dark circles beneath his eyes, he had been pretty exhausted long before Old Betsy sent him to dreamland. She got the distinct impression that this was the first real rest he had gotten in ages. Not sure what to do, and even less sure how to feel, Helga stepped back again and her bewildered brain started running on automatic. She picked up the broken Yahoo bottle from the floor, carefully depositing the broken glass into a nearby wastebasket. The took a spare blanket from the foot of her bed and draped it across him. It wasn't particularly cold in the room, but it just seemed like the thing to do.

Fatigue setting in again, she went back to the bed, sat down, and continued to stare. She giggled at the irony one again. For once it had been Arnold sneaking into _her_ bedroom, and yet it was still the same room as ever. At this she fell over and began laughing into her pillow until tears came. Then continued with the tears until sleep came. She drifted off into the dreamless sleep of a person whose subconscious has just given up on the idea of trying to top reality for once. She was still sleeping soundly at dawn, when the sun briefly peeked through a gap in the rainclouds and cast the room in a warm glow.

Arnold struggled groggily to his feet, briefly wondering where he was. A glance around the room filled him with a flood of nostalgia, and he remembered why he was here. This was his room at the boarding house, he was home! After all these years, after all the longing, he was finally here. Bits of the previous night drifted back to him. He got into town late, and was trying to keep a low profile. Tired as he was, he could only think of one place to go, so he went home. He sneaked in via the skylight, like he had a thousand times before. Then he laid down in his bed and got some much needed sleep.

He thought about this for a moment, and it definitely was the plan he had started with, but that didn't explain why the bed was over there and he was sleeping here on the floor. He rubbed his face in concentration and immediately found an extremely sore spot. Ouch, how did this happen? More of the previous night started to come back to his addled mind as he looked around the room again in more detail. Nearly everything in the room was just how he remembered it. There were his Purdy Boy mystery novels on the bookshelf, same as always. There was his desk, same as always. Lying in his bed was a rather attractive blonde-haired woman, same as always. His personally customized alarm clock sat on the shelf above the woman's head, same… as… alwa-

Arnold shook his head to clear the mental cobwebs and cast his gaze once more toward the bed, and stared at the occupant, who he was now at least reasonably sure he wasn't imagining. Something about her looked hauntingly familiar, but he wasn't sure why just yet. She appeared to be on the tall side for a woman, about his height, with long legs that he couldn't help but stare at a bit longer than strictly necessary. She wore a long pink nightgown, with short sleeves that showed off a surprising amount of muscle tone in her slender arms. Her long, golden hair shone in the brief sunlight, despite being utterly unkempt from a night of sleep. At the back of his mind a name was forming, but he couldn't bring himself to believe it. Of all the people to run into first, and of all the places to find her, it was just too much to actually be true.

The mystery woman lazily rolled over to face his direction. One glance at her face and he knew exactly who he was looking at, regardless of how she may have changed.

"Mornin', Football-Head," said Helga through half-open eyes before closing them again, not entirely awake yet.

"Good morning Helga," replied Arnold in an unexpectedly casual tone.

There was a moment of silence, then Helga's eyes snapped open wide and she sat bolt upright. "Arnold? Is that really you?" Arnold grinned back at her, readying a reply. Helga jumped up and ran to him, her mixed emotions making her unsure if she was going to throw her arms around him in a loving hug, or punch him again.

In her confusion, she did both.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	4. Chapter 4: Storytime

Helga and Arnold fell to the floor in a heap. She had tried to throw her arms around his neck in a manic embrace, while also trying to punch him in the stomach. This naturally threw her off-balance. Having learned a hard lesson last night, Arnold began to duck the moment he saw his former classmate lunge toward him. This resulted in Helga missing entirely with both her punch and her hug, spinning around backwards, knocking Arnold face-first onto the floor once more, and falling on top of him with a loud crash that rattled the windows just a bit. Both of them lay there for a long, awkward moment, trying to understand what exactly had just happened.

"Ok Helga, I'll stay down," commented the young man with a bit of dry sarcasm.

A moment ago Helga was completely tongue-tied, and had no idea what to say next. There was a part of her, a huge part, that still burned for her grade-school crush. She had never stopped loving him, she had merely been pushing those feeling deeper and deeper down in an effort to quell her feeling of loss at his departure. She loved him as fiercely as ever, underneath it all. Complicating matters was what all this love had actually been hidden beneath. He had left her to live with his parents, and that was sad, but understandable. It was that he didn't come back. At first she had felt loss, then bitterness, then betrayal. He left, and he never came back. How could he? Didn't he know she loved him? Didn't he know he was leaving behind a little girl in Hillwood whose heart he had stolen when they were still in pre-school?

Oh, right. He really didn't know any of that. Because she had denied it. She had denied it to his face, and stomped out of the jungle. The old bully Helga G. Pataki had taken over and finally driven them apart for good. Later she wrote letters to him, confessing her love so many times, trying desperately to undo what she had done. Would that have worked? Would that have helped? She never found out, because each ultimately unsent letter was still here in her room, waiting for a day of bravery that never came.

It was his fault. It was her own fault.

She still adored him. She resented him.

Arnold was lost forever. Arnold was here, now.

Helga searched her heart, her feelings, her very soul. She dug deep, drew from every syllable of every poem she had ever read or written. Just this once she found the inner strength to push through her lifelong inhibitions, the with to compose the exact right words to say, and had the courage to finally tell her beloved exactly what she had always wanted him to hear from her lips. She closed her eyes, opened her mouth to speak, and…

"Hey what is all the noise you are making? I was trying to sleep down here and perhaps other people too!" exclaimed a wretchedly familiar voice from the doorway.

Helga choked, her eyes flying wide open and filled with the fires of an unspeakable wrath. Her moment had shattered, the perfect words jumbled and lost in her head. She screamed a name, "Kokoshka!"

Oskar Kokoshka was, by far, the worst boarder at the Sunset Arms boarding house. He was greedy, whiny, lazy, self-centered, and perhaps the single most inconsiderate person on the face of the Earth. He was a middle-aged man with a protruding gut and a carefully practiced look of bewildered innocence on his face. Helga noticed his skinny neck, and how it so sorely lacked a pair of strong female hands to constrict it until the face above turned purple. If she hadn't been still been sprawled on the floor at the time, she would have corrected that glaring omission with gusto. Instead, she scrambled to her feet and glared daggers at the man in her doorway.

"Mind your own business, bucko," she roared, "and get out of my room right now or you're going to be found in six different shallow graves across three counties!" Helga felt a certain power behind her words now that she hadn't felt in years, an electric tingle that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Her temper had mellowed a some over time, she always assumed this was just a side effect of growing up. With Arnold here now, she felt more alive than ever, her emotions heightened and spinning deliciously out of control. She bared her teeth at Oskar in a shark-like grin.

"Heh heh heh," the startled man said as he shrunk back. His eyes darted around the room, as if looking for something, finally spotting Arnold. "Is that Arnold there in your room today? Hello Arnold it has been a long time."

Helga was a bit surprised by how easily Oskar recognized him, but was stopped from comment by Arnold, who hurriedly scrambled to a sitting position and stared the older man down with his trademark blue-eyed sincerity.

"I'm not here." said the boy in a flat voice. "Please, Mr. Kokoshka, I need you to do this for me. Go back to your room, and don't tell anyone you saw me. I can't explain now, but please, as my friend, do this for me? Ok?"

Without hesitation, Oskar grinned at the pleading boy. "Anything for you Arnold old friend. Ok you were never here and I saw nothing. I will tell nobody." With that he turned and walked back toward his room, whistling softly to himself as he walked.

"Huh," said Helga, "I expected more of an argument out of Kokoshka. Looks like you haven't lost your natural way with people, Football Head." She grinned at him. "So, are you gonna tell me what that was all about? Why the big secret? For that matter, why are you sneaking into my room in the middle of the night?" Her inquiry started with a friendly tone, but as she spoke it grew slowly more agitated, frustration and pain pouring into her voice. "And why now? Where have you been for the past seven years, paste-for-brains? Why didn't you come back to m- Why didn't you come back?"

Arnold had a tendency to be a bit dense about some things, but he definitely noticed the shimmer of tears forming in Helga's eyes as she finished her questions. There was a part of him that secretly hoped that he knew the reason for this reaction, but he brushed that aside. The important thing now was that she was here, she was a friend, and she was about to cry. Arnold couldn't allow that to happen.

"Helga, come sit with me and we'll talk. I'll answer all of your questions. I promise." Arnold patted the old shag carpet beside where he was sitting, beckoning her to join him. She did so, sitting on the floor, both of them resting their backs against the slanted wall. Arnold cleared his throat, and began speaking.

"It all begins with a man known as La Sombra. I'm sure you remember him. He's a ruthless mercenary and a pirate. He fancies himself as a treasure hunter, and his most lucrative jobs tend to involve the theft and sale of Central American artifacts. Years ago he heard about a legendary emerald treasure, fabled to have been held by the equally legendary Green-Eye people of San Lorenzo. It was known as La Corazón, meaning "The Heart." La Sombra became obsessed with it, determined to get his hands on it at any cost. To do that though, he needed someone to guide him."

Helga nodded in recognition, scowling a bit at her memory of the wretched man.

"Unfortunately, he found the perfect people for the job. A doctor on a humantiarian aid mission and an archaeologist studying the jungles of San Lorenzo had fallen together in the course of their travels. They fell in love, actually. More importantly to La Sombra, they had befriended the Green-Eye people, making them the only outsiders who knew where La Corazón might be located."

Helga had heard about most of these events before, while in the Jungles herself. She stayed silent though, nodding. Arnold had clearly been preparing to tell this tale to someone for a long time, and right now she wanted to everything he had to say. Seeming to realize that he was covering familiar ground, Arnold condensed the next bit of his story somewhat.

"La Sombra tricked my parents, took La Corazón, and they stole it back. The Green-Eye people were amazingly good at not being found unless they wished to be, so La Sombra couldn't find them again. He was defeated, but now even more obsessed with both the treasure itself, and revenge against those who had stolen it from him in his moment of victory."

The Arnold paused to give a gentle smile before continuing.

"For a while though, things went smoothly. My parents got married, had a child," Arnold smirked and pointed a thumb at himself as he said this, "and returned to Hillwood to live a peaceful life as new parents. They were happy that way, for nearly two years."

The young man's expression darkened now, a bit of old anguish burning in his eyes. "Then the message came. The Green-Eye people were in danger, La Sombra had found the mountain tunnel that led to their hidden city, and it was only a matter of time before the peaceful Green-Eyes would be overrun by his mercenaries. My parents were the only people they could turn to. These were the people who had saved my parents' life more than once. They had saved my life the day I was born. We all owed them. I know that going to help them was the only choice my parents could have made. They're just not the kind of people who could leave friends in need. As much as it hurt me as a child, I... I understand it now, it was the right thing to do."

He blinked once very sloely, to steady his thoughts, then went on.

"My parents expected that this would be a short trip. It was a few days before my second Birthday, but they were so sure they'd be back in time to celebrate it with me. They didn't intend to get involved directly, planning to enlist other organizations to help. My Mother tried appealing to the local authorities in San Lorenzo, but too many of them were already in La Sombra's pocket, and they refused to take action against him. My Father contacted various humanitarian organizations to ask for help, but since the Green-Eyes were only a myth, they also refused."

"Jerks," Helga grumbled. Arnold gave a small nod of agreement. If anyone else had been willing to help, his life would have been much different. He went on with his tale.

"In the end, they had no choice but to get involved directly. It took weeks, then months. They showed the peaceful Green-Eye people how to build more effective traps, and how to fight when they must. The peaceful tribe didn't take well to the fighting, it simply wasn't in their nature. Still, when you have enough people with spears, they don't have to be great warriors to defend their home, they just need to point those spears in the right direction and be vigilant. The only way in or out was a single tunnel through the mountain, so it was actually quite easy to prevent anyone from passing through."

Arnold sighed, "La Sombra realized this fact too, and posted his own armed guards at the other side of the tunnel. Now no outsiders could get into the hidden city of the Green-Eyes, but nobody within the city could leave. My parents were trapped, and La Sombra's men waited for the Green-Eyes to drop their guard. Neither side backed down, and the stalemate went on for years. My parents had no contact with the outside world, I never knew what had become of them."

He cleared his throat and took a deep breath before continuing.

"Then I found my parents' journal, and with that I found the hidden city. I'm sure you those events, since you got dragged into them yourself. Needless to say, we found my parents, La Sombra went to prison, and the three of us planned to stay with the Green-Eyes for a year or two more to help them rebuild."

"That was more than one or two years, or did that escape your notice?" commented Helga, masking the sadness in her voice with sarcasm.

Again the boy nodded in agreement. "Yeah, I know. At first it was just taking longer than expected, but it was still going well. Eventually though... Well, remember the authorities I mentioned earlier, the ones who had already been bribed by La Sombra? They were still in his corner. He was free again just as we were planning to come back home, and he was angrier and more determined than ever. He used the same tactic against us once more, and unfortunately there was just as little that we could do about it. Now all three of us were trapped in the city, and any attempt at escape was sure to lead to our capture, or worse."

"And that's where you've been this whole time? That's why you stopped writing? That's why you never came home?" Helga asked, trying to push aside the feeling of abandonment that had been in her heart all this time.

A football-shaped head nodded.

"And the letters that Phil has been sending, you didn't get any of those either, did you?" asked Helga, softly.

Arnold chuckled, but it was a grim sound, devoid of any humor. "Oh, you underestimate La Sombra there. No, we didn't get _most_ of our mail, but whenever there was particularly bad news, he made sure those letters got to us. One day a couple years ago he delivered one personally, standing at the mouth of the cavern once he was sure we were there to hear him. He read that letter in a sing-song voice, laughing all the while. Afterward he folded it into a paper airplane and tossed into the tunnel for us to find, so we could see that every word had been true." His eyes shimmered a bit now, and he closed them in an effort to maintain his composure. "That's how I learned that Gramdma Gertie had passed away."

Helga Pataki stared at Arnold in stark horror, her heart simply breaking for the little boy she once knew. She had come to love Gertie as family herself, and it stung to imagine how she would have felt in Arnold's place. She slowly reached over to give the poor boy a hug, wanting so badly to do anything that might help take away his pain. Before she was halfway to him though, his closed eyes snapped open, now smoldering with fury. Helga jumped back in surprise, finding this new sight profoundly unsettling.

"The city was in a small valley, protected by unclimbable cliffs on all sides. I climbed the cliffs anyway. Made my way to the jungle floor and started the long walk to the nearest city. I knew La Sombra operated out of that city on business, it's where he met his clients, and I suspected he had an office of some sort so he could feign legitimacy. That was my goal, I wanted information, leverage. I was going to take him down for good, and for that I needed evidence." Arnold smiled broadly now, his expression once again returning to his usual good-natured cheer. "He had a computer in his office, and there I found the evidence I wanted, and so much more. It turns out that he had help getting released from prison, and that same person had been funding his activities from then on. I found all the evidence that I could ever need to shut both of them down, permanently."

"And did you?" Helga asked with a detectable level of impatience.

"Well..." Arnold rubbed the back of his neck and blushed just a bit as he hesitated. "That's sort of where you come in, Helga." He flashed her a guilty grin.

"I do?" asked the puzzled young woman.

"Well, that city isn't exactly wi-fi ready. My only option was to load this information onto a memory card that I found in his desk, and run away with it. The first part went fine, the second... not so much. I was spotted leaving the office, and somehow," he pointed at his unusually oblong skull, "they recognized me right away. I ran, but there were too many of them, and I was sure they'd catch me eventually. In my pocket I had a letter that I had intended to mail to you for the longest time, already addressed and stamped. Not seeing a better option, I dropped the memory card in, sealed it, and mailed it."

"That's why I'm here, now. I had to stowaway on-board two boats, a train, and a truck to do it, but I'm here. If I can get that letter and expose them, then this can all finally end. After days of travel, I was dead tired last night when I finally arrived in town, and I needed sleep before going to your house in the morning to retrieve that letter. So I came here," he shrugged meaningfully, "and you know the rest."

"You sent me a letter?" said Helga, a smile starting to grow on her face.

"Yeah, didn't you get it?" asked Arnold.

"Well, no. I assume you sent it to my parents' house, since that's the address you would have had, and I don't visit all that much these days. It should be there though, they usually hold any mail for me. Unless they forget again."

"Ok," he took a slow breath, "then I need to go and get it."

Helga blinked. "I think you mean 'we' need to go get it, Football-Head."

Arnold shook his head gravely, "No, La Sombra's men probably knew I was coming into town. They knew I was fleeing San Lorenzo, and where else would I go? I already put you in enough danger by mailing the letter to you in the first place, which I'm really sorry about." He blushed and looked down.

Ahh, a reason to bring out the trademark Pataki stubbornness. Helga felt strangely comforted by this swing in the tone of the conversation. Previously she wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or cry. Crossing her arms and scowling though, that was second nature by now.

Helga crossed her arms and scowled. "Wow, you have been away for a while. Did you really think that you could give me the old 'oh no, I can't put an innocent girl in harm's way' speech and get away with it? Hello Paste-For-Brains, this is Helga G. Pataki you are talking to. If I say I'm coming along, you must know by now that I'm not asking for permission here." She rolled her eyes once and smiled warmly, arms casually dropping into her lap again. "Besides, why would my parents hand my mail over to some boy they could hardly remember seven years ago?"

Arnold opened his mouth to argue. Then shut it. She had a point about her parents. He opened his mouth again anyway, unsure what to actually say. He also knew that once she decided she was doing something, there was no stopping her. Plus, she was smiling at him now, an all-too-rare sight that always made him feel warm and confused inside as a kid. It still had the same effect, perhaps magnified now.

Helga raised half an eyebrow at the bewildered boy and smirked. "So, ready to go for a stroll, Hair-Boy? It's only a few blocks, and I'm sure you remember the way." Arnold's mouth snapped shut again, and he simply nodded. Helga gestured vaguely at the pink nightgown she was still wearing. "Good. Now go downstairs and say hello to Phil while I get dressed."

"Whatever you say, Helga," replied Arnold, grinning. Grabbing his backpack, Arnold quietly walked out of the attic bedroom, closing the trapdoor behind him for her privacy. Helga managed to take two perfectly restrained, grown-up steps toward the closet. On her third step she gave in and began dancing like a manic ballerina and humming to herself. In the hallway, Arnold made a stop by the boarding house bathroom for a much-needed shower and change of clothes.

While both of them were busy getting ready for the day ahead, neither one noticed the sound of a car pulling up to the curb outside, nor did they notice the closing of four car doors.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	5. Chapter 5: Beeper Queen

Helga stared at her closet, surveying her clothing options for the day. Not knowing what the today would bring, she wanted something practical, something you could get dirty in. She settled on a pair of light-blue denim overalls with rolled-up cuffs, one of her various pink t-shirts, and a pair of pink socks. She thought the ensemble looked quite 1980s, smiling to herself as she recalled a certain someone's appreciation for retro styles. She slipped on her white sneakers and shoved keys and a wallet into her pockets. Helga stopped to look in the mirror, and couldn't help but think her outfit was incomplete. Today felt like a day for riding into battle, and she wasn't properly armed yet.

Helga opened her dresser drawer and pulled out a small box. When she had finally accepted that Arnold was never coming back, she had hidden her precious keepsakes of him away. It was just easier that way, not having to see them all the time. Things were different now. She reached in among the various knickknacks and pulled out a golden locket on a chain, which she fastened around her neck. The cool weight of it still familiar after all this time. She reached in again and pulled out a long pink ribbon. In seconds she had whipped her hair back into twin pigtails, and tied a tidy bow atop her head.

She grabbed her small messenger bag (call it a purse at your own peril) and looked in the mirror once more. Now she was ready to go, and stepped out into the hallway.

At the same time, Arnold was dressing after his quick shower. It had been a long couple of days, and it was amazing how a little bit of soap and water could make you feel properly human again. His wardrobe selection was comparatively straightforward. The clothes he took off were filthy, and went into the hamper. His backpack held one change of clean clothes, which he wore. Aside from being clean, it was nearly identical to the clothes he had been wearing the night before. High fashion hadn't really been his top concern.

He picked up his mostly deflated backpack and headed toward the door. Now he was ready to go, stepping out into the hallway as well. He met Helga there, exchanged nods, and they both turned to walk down the stairs to the ground floor. First order of business was to tell Grandpa Phil that he was back. Then it was time to go get the letter, and this whole business would be over. Arnold's heart soared now that he was so close to ending his family's torment for good.

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK_

Arnold's heart stopped soaring, and dropped straight into his stomach. The knocking at the front door had been loud and did not sound friendly. He had been expecting trouble, and knew in his gut that it had found him. He pulled Helga to the floor there on the landing, out of sight of the front door, but close enough to hear what was happening.

Phil was walking over to the door, shouting "Well just hold your horses a minute I'll get there!"

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK_

The old man gave an exasperated sigh as he finally reached the door and opened it wide. "I heard you already. You gotta have some patience you know. Sheesh. What do you want, it's too early to be selling vacuum cleaners on a Sunday mo-"

A gruff voice spoke, instantly recognized by Arnold. It was one of the men who had chased him back in San Lorenzo, the one who seemed to be in charge. "It's Saturday, old man. We want your Grandson, and we know he's in this house somewhere. You're going to take us to him. Now." The thug at the door seemed surprisingly sure about this, and clearly wasn't going to take 'no' for an answer. This was terrible. If they found Arnold, it was all over. If they didn't find Arnold, he was sure they'd take it out on his Grandpa. There had to be a third option.

"Helga!" whispered Arnold, "this is bad. We need to get out of here now, and we need to draw them away from my Grandpa somehow. Do you have a car?"

"Well… yeah. Basically," Replied Helga, "It's in the garage."

"Ok, I need you to sneak into the garave via the side door and meet me out front with the car, I'm going to need a speedy getaway. There's only one thing that will make them forget all about Grandpa, and that's me. So they have to see me."

"This sounds crazy. Are you sure about this, Football Head?" hissed Helga in a whisper.

"Nope, not sure at all. But I have to do something, and this is all I've got," signed Arnold with some reluctance. "Can you do it?"

Helga thought for a moment longer, then nodded. Turning around, they ran through the house as silently and quickly as they could. The pair cut through the attic bedroom, climbed out onto the roof, and down the fire escape, landing in the alley behind the boarding house.

"Three minutes," warned Helga sternly, "don't be late." They shared another nod and took off around the building on opposite directions. Helga making heading straight for the garage's side door, while Arnold settled into a casual stroll as he began to walk directly to the front.

"I told you already, I haven't seen the Short-man in years. I couldn't find him if I tried. He's off in South America, or was it Central America. One of those Americas that isn't this one. And also not Canada. Santa Loretta or something, I don't really recall. One of those places with a 'San' in the name anyway. I don't know." Phil babbled on, in his usual scatterbrained manner. Arnold knew that eventually the three thugs at the front of the house would get impatient and probably hurt his Grandpa, but he was keeping them too distracted to get to that point as of yet. Perfect, now to wait just a bit longer.

Arnold waited impatiently, checking his watch. 2 minutes, 35 seconds. Time to act. He took off at a top-speed run from around the corner of the building, barreling toward the three deeply distracted men. Just as they heard his footsteps, Arnold ran past with his left arm outstretched, neatly clotheslining the two men standing at the bottom of the stoop. They weren't really hurt, but they had both fallen, which was enough. Arnold stopped for a second, wanting the leader to get a good look at him, since that was the point of this entire exercise.

"You!" shouted the man.

Arnold shot the man a finger-pistol and winked, hoping to enrage him further. He had to draw all their attention, and every little bit helped. Counting silently in his head, he carefully tracked when to make the next move, hoping dearly that Helga didn't get delayed. "Hi there Grandpa, wish I could stay and catch up right now, but," Arnold gestured toward the two men about to regain their footing, letting that be explanation enough.

"Arnold?" old Phil asked, his eyes crowing huge with surprise. "You're back? You're alive?" with this the elderly man started to cackle with glee and dance a jig. The jig was cut short about a second later with a shout of "Ow, my hip!" but the cackle continued.

The two fallen men were almost on their feet again when Arnold took off running toward the garage door. With all the anger focused on him, not only had they forgotten about Grandpa Phil, but they also didn't notice the garage door opening. So far, the plan was going perfectly. All Arnold had to do was to hop in Helga's car, and they'd be safely on their way. This was going to work, it was actually going to work!

This was the moment when Arnold finally saw Helga's getaway vehicle. Arnold reflected that when he asked her if she had a car, and she replied, "Basically," that would have been an excellent time for follow-up questions. Her pigtails sticking out from beneath a motorcycle helmet, Helga was piloting a pink Vespa scooter. The license plate read "BEPR QN" and it had a parking lot sticker on it from the local community college.

"Are you kidding me?" cried Arnold, nearly stopping.

"Get on!" shouted Helga, slowing down so he could do so. Not left with many other options, Arnold jumped onto the bike and wrapped his arms around Helga's waist as she opened up the throttle with a less-than-mighty roar from the tiny engine. It wasn't fast, especially with two people, but it was fast enough to outrun three startled pedestrians. It would get them some a lead, but in a straight line they were in trouble as soon as the pursuers got back in there own car.

"We can't really outrun them on this, can we?" shouted Arnold.

"Watch and learn, Football Head," was her reply, "and hold on tight!"

He squeezed her even tighter, and she was thankful the engine noise covered up her soft, involuntary sigh of happiness. She shook her head briefly as they whizzed past Gerald field, then took a sudden right turn that made her passenger slightly dizzy. She made another quick right turn, then left down an alleyway.

"But Helga, your parents' house is the other way!"

"Think it through, Arnoldo, we need to lose them before we head there, or they'll just be there waiting for us again. So we lead them on a chase until they get lost, lay low for a bit, and then head over there. Easy peasy," she replied with a chuckle. "Man, all this time and I'm still the sneakier one. How did you survive without me?"

Arnold thought about this, beginning to wonder the same thing himself, but he didn't say anything. He just held on and let Helga drive. Her scooter lacked speed, but it could get into spaces no car could possibly follow. She darted between dumpsters, down a narrow alley, and across the footbridge at the park. She doubled-back one more time for good measure, even though they hadn't seen any trace of the car they had been watching for.

"There's a spot by the river I go to sometimes, has a good view of the water, and it's secluded. I think we can hide there for a while and wait out their search. Good plan?"

Arnold nodded, Helga watching him in the wing mirror. They drove a bit further, pulled off the road, and drove under a dock at the river's edge. It was clearly built when the river level had been higher than it was now, and there was just enough clearance to park the scooter beneath it. Both riders dismounted, and Helga pushed the scooter into the shadow beneath the dock. Nobody would be able to spot them from the road now, and it was unlikely that the thugs were going to search by boat. So for now, they were safe.

Helga removed her helmet and shook her hair back into place. She looked at the serious expression on Arnold's face, and managed to hold her composure for almost two full seconds. Then she started laughing. She laughed hard, covering her mouth with her hand in an attempt to stifle some of the noise, but the laughter itself couldn't be stopped. Her shoulders were convulsing, her head bobbing uncontrollably as the laughter kept pouring out. Arnold looked at her in puzzlement for a moment longer, then joined her in unbridled laughter. They kept at it until they couldn't breathe, leaning on each other for support. Finally they gave up, both deciding to sit down on the rocky ground before they fell on it.

It took a while before they could regain control, though neither one was trying particularly hard. They hadn't had a laugh like this in longer than either could remember, and right now it was the most amazing feeling in the world. They slowly came back to their senses, though they had to avoid looking at each other's face for another few minutes lest another giggle-fit erupt. Finally they sighed, able to breathe normally again.

"You're in town one day, and I'm already outrunning four hired goons on a scooter. Arnold, have I ever told you that you're a bad influence on me?" Helga grinned broadly, "I can't remember when I've had this much fun."

Arnold paused in thought for a moment. "Four goons? I only saw three."

Helga blinked, then extended her hand to Arnold for inspection. He saw some fresh bruises forming on her knuckles. As usual, they didn't particularly seem to bother her. "One of them was being clever, trying to sneak in around the back while the rest kept Phil busy at the door," she explained casually, "Then suddenly he was taking a nap. No idea how that happened. Maybe he's got narcolepsy, the poor guy."

She looked her companion in the eyes and feigned a look of pure innocence, punctuated with some fluttering eyelashes. This triggered another round of laughter, which they tried to cut short to save their aching sides.

Arnold looked up at the license plate on the Vespa behind them. "B-E-P-R-Q-N… Beeper Queen? That's what you named your scooter?"

Helga smiled at him, "Not exactly. It was a gift from Bob to Miriam, to celebrate her sobering-up and getting her drivers license back. It was actually remarkably sweet gesture, by my parents' standards." She sighed, disappointment dripping from the sound. "Miriam got sober, but she didn't _stay_ sober. She's trying again, but either way she won't be getting her license back anytime soon. So the Beeper Queen became my trusty steed. Honestly, I think a '69 Dodge Charger would have been more my style, but beggars can't be choosers. Besides, she's easy on gas mileage."

Helga reached into her messenger bag and pulled out a water bottle. She took a long pull from the bottle, and offered it to her companion. He accepted it gratefully, and took a drink. Something was clearly on his mind now. "Helga, I'm sorry I dragged you into this. I really don't want you getting hurt."

Helga rolled her eyes. "This again? Ok, first of all, you can just knock off the apologizing, bucko. I could have backed out at any time, I chose to be here. Second, I'm not going to let any two-bit hired goons take you away again, Football Head. They'd have to get through Helga G. Pataki to do it, and I don't think they've got what it takes." She said this last bit with a certain bravado, then wondered if she had said too much.

"You want to protect me? Why?" asked Arnold, with disarming sincerity.

"Um… Because making your life miserable is _my_ job! Call it professional pride."

Arnold looked at her skeptically, raising one eyebrow. He had never been sure where he stood with Helga, and on some level that had always made her more exciting than the other girls he had known. She was a mystery he had never been able to unravel. The more confusing thing was that he was never entirely sure where he hoped he stood with her. Still, while her answer had clearly not been real, he didn't expect to pull the truth out of her right now. He sighed and rolled his eyes, though a slight smile never left his face. "Whatever you say, Helga."

"So," began Helga as casually as she could manage, "did you get yourself hitched while you were down there in San Lorenzo? Find yourself a girlfriend among the Green-Eyes?" She giggled, but inside she had tensed up like a steel spring. The answer to this question meant a lot to her right now. If he said 'yes,' then the feelings she had running loose inside once again were going to grow fangs and tear her apart. Outwardly though, she remained calm, taking another swig from the water bottle to help hide her anticipation.

"A girlfriend among the Green-Eye people? No way, that would never work. They've got this weird prophecy thing." Arnold blushed and looked downward, "It's kind of embarrassing, but the short version is that they kind of... worship me there. If I tried to date one of the Green-Eye women, she'd probably end up building some kind of weird Arnold shrine." He chuckled at this thought.

Helga choked, spraying water out of both nostrils.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	6. Chapter 6: Messages Delivered

The sun was creeping higher in the sky as Arnold and Helga sat beneath the dock, safely hidden from sight. They had been here for an hour or so, most of that time spent talking about old times, carefully trying to avoid the subject of the trouble they had found themselves in today. Eventually Arnold became fidgety, looking more and more worried, and Helga didn't even have to ask why. She reached into her messenger bag and pulled out a cellular phone. It was an older model, with a flip-open design. She held out the phone to Arnold.

"Go ahead, call Phil and make sure he's safe now." It was phrased it as a friendly offer, but there was a hint of anxiety in her voice. Helga knew what Arnold had been worrying about because she was thinking it too. She brightened up and continued, "Once you get that out of your system, we can move onto phase 2 of your cunning plan. I do hope this is a cunning plan we're involved in here, and not the other kind."

Arnold took the phone appreciatively and dialed a number. Each ring shot a fresh pang of worry through him, until it was finally answered just after the third. "Grandpa, it's me, Arnold. Are you ok? Did the men leave?"

Phil chuckled on the other end of the line, he seemed to be in remarkably good humor, which put Arnold at ease more than anything else could have. "Oh, yeah we're fine here. Busy morning though, what with the hoodlums at my front door, my long-lost grandson back in town without explanation, and getting to watch them all fighting on my stoop. Ooh, The part where four grown men with a car totally failed to catch a girl on a pink scooter, I think that was my favorite part."

To the great relief of his Grandson, the old man seemed both safe and happy now. Arnold assured him that he and Helga were safe for now, followed by a rather abbreviated summary of how he came to be back in Hillwood, and why it took so long. To his credit, Phil took it all quite well. The news that his Son and Daughter-in-law were also alive and well made him burst into joyful laughter.

"So," the elder asked, "What's the next move, and how can I help?"

"The letter with the memory card in it should have ended up at Helga's house. Well, her parents' house." Arnold corrected himself, "So in a bit we're going to drive over there to get it. La Sombra's men don't know that's where it is, so we should be able to get in and out safely as long as we aren't followed. When we have that evidence, there's an old colleague of my Mom's who I can give it to, he's got connections with Interpol and a few other agencies and they're sure to take a great interest in this. If this all works, when get the proof into his hands, this all ends. When this is done, we can come home finally, to stay."

"Sounds like a plan, Short-man. What's my part?" asked Phil, eager to help. There was the faintest hint of tears in his voice, "I gotta say it'll be wonderful to have the family back together again. It's been so long since I've gotten to see all of y-"

There was a clicking noise on the line, which made both Grandfather and Grandson go silent.

"Oh are you done with the phone now? I wanted to order a pizza and the phone has been tied up forever and I'm so hungry. What is taking so long?" It was Oskar Kokoshka, once again displaying his total lack of tact and uncanny ability to ruin even the most touching of moments.

"Kokoshka! Get off the dang phone, this is important!" shouted Phil in annoyance.

"I am hungry now and that is important too!" whined Kokoshka in reply.

Arnold interjected, "That's all right, Grandpa. We need to get going soon anyway, I think it's time. I'll see you soon, ok?"

"Take care, Short-man. Oh, and I have one piece of advice for you."

"Does it involve raspberries?" he smirked to himself at the memory.

"No, it involves your girlfriend there, with the eyebrow. Take care of her, ok? I think she'll return the favor, she's got a knack for that."

Arnold blushed a bit, "Sure thing, Grandpa."

They ended their call, and Arnold passed the phone back to Helga, who stashed it away in her bag once more. They sat in silence for a moment, thinking, before the young woman spoke.

"Did you really mean that? You're going to come home, to stay? Once this is all done, I mean." She asked, with a tremor of hope in her voice that she had been unable to hide.

Arnold nodded in response. "Is that going to be a problem? Last time I saw you, you seemed to be glad I'd be out of your hair finally. You said something to that effect."

Helga became flustered, unable to find the right words to say. "Well, you know, Football Head… maybe I didn't really mind having you around as much as I let on. In fact, maybe I kind of missed having you around, now and again. I tried using other kids for spitball target practice, but it just wasn't the same."

Seeing Arnold's puzzled expression slowly turning into a smile was just too much for the increasingly lovesick young woman at this particular moment. She jumped up, threw on her helmet, and mounted her scooter. It started up with a less-than-impressive engine roar, and she glared down her companion.

"Come on, Arnoldo, lets go get this over with. The Hillwood Cheese Festival is going on this weekend, and I consider it my civic duty to stuff myself silly with nachos and maybe some of those little rubbery cheese curd things that sort of squeak when you bite them. You remember the ones. I can't spend my whole Saturday sitting around under a dock, I've got things to do."

"Whatever you say, Helga," said Arnold once more, with a huge grin on his face. He climbed onto the scooter behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.

Helga went all mushy inside at the feeling of his arms around her again, then shook her head to snap herself back to reality. "Hold on tight. I don't have a second helmet to offer you, and even if it did I really doubt it would fit. No falling off, or Paste-For-Brains will be more than just an affectionate nickname for you."

"Affectionate?" the young man queried?

Helga pretended she didn't hear him, and was glad he couldn't see her blushing with the helmet on. "Beeper Queen, away!" she shouted, giving opening up the throttle on her scooter all the way, resulting in a blistering top speed of about 20 miles per hour once they were back on the pavement.

The trip was thankfully uneventful, with no sign of their pursuers. Helga took a less direct route to her parents' house, swinging wide around town to avoid the most likely places La Sombra's men might be searching for their football-headed quarry. They arrived at the house about a half-hour later. She had insisted that the extra-long route was the best way to be safe, which wasn't entirely untrue. The fact that it meant extra time with Arnold clinging to her… well, call that a happy bonus. They parked along the side of the house, obscuring the highly recognizable pink scooter behind some bushes.

"Looks like nobody's home." Observed Helga, glancing at the empty driveway. "I think Bob mentioned something about a booth at the festival this year for the Beeper Emporium, him and Miriam are probably out there setting it up now. If they left my mail in the usual place where I can find it, that shouldn't be a problem. Heck, it's probably a blessing."

She turned and walked to the door, unlocked it with her keyring, and beckoned Arnold to follow her in. Down the hallway, closer to the center of the house, was a small cabinet. Helga walked directly to it and opened one of the various drawers. She give a huge smile, seeing a worn and dirty envelope bearing her name. This was it, the key to this entire misadventure was right there in her hand. She held it out to Arnold.

"Is this what you were looking for?" They both grinned, as Arnold took the letter from her hand. He tore open the side of the envelope, tipped it over his hand, and small black rectangle fell into his palm. It was the memory card, finally. He closed his fist around it, and looked up at the young woman who had helped him. He wanted to thank her, wanted to say he was sorry for getting her into this mess, and wanted to say something else that he had never quite found the words for.

What he ended up saying instead was "Hey!" as she snatched the forgotten envelope from his other hand and stuffed it into her back pocket with a quick fold.

"Well, Football-Head, it is a letter addressed to me. That means it's mine." She stuck her tongue out at him playfully, remembering his mention of spending months trying to get the letter just right. There was no way, absolutely no way she was going to let him keep her from reading it now.

"Helga, it… it's not finished. You can't read it, it's not ready!" Arnold complained, still clearly thrilled about finding the precious memory card, but also beginning to blush deep pink on top of that.

Helga considered the options. She had the note in her back pocket now. If she ran, she knew he would chase her, and right now that sounded wonderful. Either Arnold would be too much of a gentleman to reach in and take it from her if he caught up to her, or he wouldn't be. Both scenarios sounded lovely as far as she was concerned. With a wicked smirk she ran out the door, slamming it behind her after one last backward glance.

Arnold waited for a moment, stunned. He hadn't been expecting that to happen, and lagged behind for several seconds. Then he too ran for the door, throwing it wide open, and preparing to stride out after her.

If he hadn't expected her to run out the door, he definitely hadn't expected to see her being pulled into a large black car. It was taking three men to restrain her, while the fourth sat in the driver's seat. She struggled and gave one man a bloody nose when she managed to briefly free one foot. For a moment even Helga, the fearsome bully of her class, was outmatched. A moment was all it took, and she disappeared into the car as the doors closed.

Arnold sprinted to the car, not knowing what he intended to do when he reached it, but never questioning his need to be there. He ran with everything he had, adrenaline and rage and years of intense jungle living giving him more speed than even he knew he was capable of. The young man ran so fast, but not fast enough. The car's tires screeched into motion, and it lurched forward. Arnold reached for the sedan, his fingers brushing against the metal of the rear fender briefly, but having no effect at all.

The car, and Helga within, tore off down the street, disappearing around a corner. There was no way to give chase now, he had no idea where they were going. He stumbled forward, falling to his knees as the burst of adrenaline took back everything it had given, with interest. On the ground in front of him was a business card, clean and white, with writing on the back in pen. It had clearly just been dropped, and intentionally. The back held a message for him:

4pm. Bring it.

Do not involve authorities.

Obey, and she might live.

He flipped the card over to read the all-too familiar logo on the front.

FTi Inc.

Future Tech Industries


	7. Chapter 7: Lovely Assistant

Helga sat on the floor, handcuffs on her wrists looping her arms around a sturdy metal pipe. They'd put the cuffs on her in the car, apparently coming prepared for just such a situation. She had a dark cloth bag over her head then too, preventing her from seeing where they had gone. The men eventually dumped her here, in what was clearly the basement of a large building. Helga had managed to wrestle the bag off of her head, and was now surveying her surroundings. Dank, lots of pipes, concrete, though surprisingly well-lit. Yeah, it was a basement.

Unfortunately it was a remarkably tidy basement, no useful clutter lying around, nothing she could use to try to pry the door open. She glanced at the door, which was metal and looked very sturdy. It was also on the opposite side of the room from where she was chained up, so it was sort of a moot point right now. There was a ventilation duct partway up one wall, but it seemed too small to crawl through. Probably wouldn't have been a problem at nine years old. Helga sighed and tried to calm herself, she was nearly shaking with anger and frustration, but there wasn't a useful outlet for them at the moment.

One of the hired goons had been ordered to stand guard outside her door, just in case anyone came for her. They seemed to be expecting someone to try, probably Arnold. The old Football Head would definitely be the sort for that type of foolishness, even if it was only out of guilt.

Her mind turned to the letter in her back pocket. It took some rather uncomfortable contortions to reach that back pocket, almost having to dislocate a shoulder to do it, but eventually she managed to get her hands back in front of her, with the envelope held between them. She wanted to read the letter, and at the same time she was a bit afraid of what it might say. Even after all that work she hesitated, but only for a moment. She had to know what it said, and there wasn't really a better use of her time right now anyway.

Helga G. Pataki opened the envelope, unfolded several pages of hand-written letter, and began to read.

* * *

Dear Helga,

We met back in preschool, when we were so very small. From that day on we played together, learned together, and shared so many firsts together. I wanted to be your friend the instant we met, and sometimes I thought maybe I was. You played the part of the class bully, but something inside me always felt that's all it was, a part you were playing. I was never quite sure why, but in some way your mean side always felt like a mask you wore, a mask you were afraid to take off. I remember the few times I thought I had gotten a peek at the girl behind that mask, and it always made me sad when she would hide away again.

Down here in San Lorenzo, one thing I have no shortage of is time to think. I find myself missing home a lot. I think about my friends every day, miss them every day. Nadine would love the exotic beetles and spiders here. Harold would be thrilled by the ceremonial feasts. They tell stories and legends around the fires most nights, and I think Gerald would be fascinated by every one. Even Stinky would probably adore tending the fields here in the hidden city. I miss all my friends, and I think about them all.

When I'm alone though, when it's quiet and still, I think of you. When I'm feeling lonely and homesick the most, I think of you. When I have a funny story, or an exciting anecdote that I'm just bursting to tell someone about, for some reason I wish I could be telling you. These are all things I never noticed before I had to leave, but over time they become clearer and clearer to me. So often you bullied me, or teased me or tormented me… but you were always there. You were a part of my life in a way I couldn't possibly even realize until you weren't. It wasn't like I had lost a friend, it was like I had lost something more. With you missing from my life though, it feels like I'm missing a leg, limping through each day just a little because of the loss.

I know that may sound silly, and you'd probably just roll your eyes at me and say my head is in the clouds as usual. The more I think on it though, the less sure I am. You were always there for me, even if it was to threaten me with a knuckle sandwich or to make fun of my hair, you were there. You would always tell the world you hated me, and I took your word for it. Was it true though? Did you hate me, or was there something else going on. One time, the night we saved the neighborhood, you told me otherwise. You even gave me my first real kiss there, I suppose. I was confused, and was too busy at the time to figure anything out. By morning, when the neighborhood was saved, you took it all back, said you didn't really mean any of it.

And I believed you then, because you seemed so sure.

And at the same time, I think deep down, I didn't believe you.

I always wanted to ask, find out what the real truth was. I suppose that's what I'm doing now. If you'd tell me, I'd really like to know for once what you really thought of me back then. Are you glad I'm out of your life now? Do you think of me on occasion too? From the day we met, I wished I could be a good friend to that strong, fearless, independent girl. She always pushed me away, no matter how hard I tried, and deep down I always worried that I had done something wrong. There's a little voice in my head though that wonders if I had it all turned-around, if what you objected to was being just a friend like any other, and that you wanted… I don't know… something else?

Like I said, this may all be crazy talk. Still, I'll never know unless I ask, and I'll never be able to stop trying to figure it out myself if I don't. I've spent months writing this letter, or a dozen similar ones that I threw away. Putting my thoughts down on paper isn't easy when I'm not entirely sure what they are, but I've had time to try, and so far this is the best I could do. Sorry if it's not entirely clear, but since when has anything with us ever been?

What I'm really trying to say… what I really want to tell you is…

Helga, I

* * *

That's where the letter ended. Arnold had said it was unfinished, and seemed worried about her reaction to it, and now she understood why. Arnold, her crush, the object of her one-sided affections all those years actually felt something for her too. He even seemed to regret that it never became anything more, he seemed to want more. That thought sent Helga's heart soaring, and despite being imprisoned in a basement, part of her felt more free than she could ever remember.

She was also angry with herself. He had cared about her. He had wanted to get closer to her. Arnold, the boy of her dreams thought about her every day still. They never came together though, and he had made it clear why. It was her own fault. Nothing stood between them back then except her own insecurities, and she had never found the courage to overcome them. She was alone, and she knew exactly why. The worst part was that he seemed to blame himself. Arnold, the kindest, sweetest, gentlest boy in the world believed he had done something wrong all these years. Somehow, it was that last thought that hurt the most.

"Stupid conscience." The girl grumbled, sniffling just a bit.

The room had become blurry for Helga, tears were welling in her eyes, but she was refusing to let them fall. She felt overwhelmed by all of the emotions inside her, but right now they weren't what she needed. She needed a plan, an advantage, anything to get her out of this situation. She wasn't usually the type to need rescue from anyone, from anything, but this time she had just to little to work with.

Then, through the tears, she saw what had been right before her this whole time. Arnold, her wonderful, beloved, beautiful, brilliant boy had given her a gift. He wouldn't have thought of it as one, but the moment she realized what she had in her hands, it became the most beautiful thing in the world. It was small and perfect and oh so shiny.

Helga grinned, her tears drying almost instantly. There was no time to be sad or afraid now. It was time to have some fun.

* * *

The thug posted to watch the basement door had been told to expect trouble from the outside, but the blond girl inside seemed pretty helpless now that she was chained up. There's not a whole lot of trouble a person can cause when handcuffed in a corner. He was startled, then, to hear a loud metallic crash from within the room. Whatever the sound was, he had to investigate.

Throwing the door open, he ran into the room and saw that the prisoner was missing. The hand and leg cuffs were lying on the floor, unlocked. On the opposite wall was an air vent, the cover torn off and thrown to the ground. He didn't know how, but the prisoner had escaped through the air vents. How could she even fit in there? He reached for his walkie-talkie to report the escape, but before his hand was halfway to his belt, the whole room tilted sideways unexpectedly.

He was unconscious for a matter of seconds, but a lot can change in such a short time. Now he was on the floor, and he was the one handcuffed to the plumbing. A girl sat beside him, smiling softly. It looked like warm, friendly smile on the surface, but there was something in her eyes that made him think of a tiger. That warm smile on the face of an attractive young woman, in this place, was somehow terrifying.

"What… what is going on?" croaked the man, failing to hide his fear.

"May I ask your name?" asked Helga sweetly, "It's terribly rude of you to know mine when I don't know yours."

"I'm… Carlos. What are you going to-"

Helga cut him off, speaking in a soft tone, as if telling a story to an old friend.

"I know how this was supposed to work. You kidnap me, I wait here while some big, strong hero comes to my aid. He either makes a bargain with you guys and gives up what he dearly wants in exchange for my life, or he falls into a trap while trying to rescue me. Not really the most creative of plans, but it's a classic for a reason. Still, I have to say that the whole damsel-in-distress thing… it just doesn't work for me. Now I know that the sappy old Football Head has a chivalrous streak a mile wide, and he'd come rushing in here in a heartbeat. That part of your plan is pretty solid. Your mistake was that the damsel you kidnapped was Helga G. Pataki. Don't worry, I promise you won't make that mistake again."

Carlos started to speak, but the calm young woman looked him right in the eye. There was something there that took his breath away. It was a sense of intense and beautiful wrath he saw there, and he totally forgot to speak at all.

"Well Carlos, when I was in fourth grade there was a boy I liked. Heck, a boy I was madly in love with. He was always picking up goofy hobbies for fun. One day he decided to put on a magic show, just for kicks. I ended up being the volunteer for the corny old disappearing-lady-in-a-box trick, and… lets just say it didn't go all that well. It did give me an idea though."

She continued in her eerily calm conversational tone. "See, I was always coming up with crazy schemes to win him over, or just to get his attention, though they never really worked. This plan though, it seemed pretty solid. All I needed to do was talk him into believing he needed a lovely assistant … well, partner… in his magic show. Then I'd just let slip that I was the most qualified one for the job. Then when he did his next magic show he'd see just how great I was."

Helga was flipping something around in her fingers now, though Carlos couldn't turn his head quite enough to see it clearly. He occasionally did catch a glint of metal out of the corner of his eye, and this worried him.

"Of course, I didn't have any magic skills at all then, but I had time and I had a mission. I read every book on magic I could find in the library. A whole summer was spent learning how to pull things out of hats, or how to trick an audience member into picking the card I wished them to, or how to get out of simple knots." Helga looked the man in the eyes, "but that wasn't good enough. I had to step up my game, to be sure this plan would work. I spent all of my allowance on supplies, bought trick card decks and handcuffs and wands with pop-out flowers."

Finally she showed him her precious gift from Arnold. The letter had been several pages long, and he had bound them all at a corner with a simple paper-clip. The one Helga held out now had been twisted into a few new shapes, and was also noticeably shorter than it should have been.

"Did you know that you can pick a locked handcuff with a paper-clip? It's not easy, but with practice it can be done. On a related note, did you know that if you twist up and break off that paper-clip in the lock, even the key isn't going to work anymore? It'll take at least an hour with a hacksaw to get a hand free. You're going to be here a while."

Helga put her arm in front of his face, so he could closely inspect a series of old, faded scars on the back of her wrist.

"Trust me on that one. Oh, and so you want to know the best part? The boy never did another magic show, so I never got to use any of those skills I wasted a summer learning. Well, until today. I should thank you for that, I suppose."

She seemed to consider this for a moment, then shook her head mockingly.

"Now, here's what's going to happen, Carlos. You're going to tell me how to get out of here. You're going to tell me what your boss has planned for Arnold, and why. You're going to be very helpful and polite to me, and you're going to be very quick about it."

Fifteen minutes later, Helga was standing in the shadows of an alley two blocks away, waiting. She had called a friend to give her a lift, once her phone was back in her possession. Carlos had been so helpful. He told her all he knew about the events surrounding her Arnold, he told her which building exit was most likely to be unguarded, and he even told her where she could find her bag. As a reward, she decided not to break his nose.

Then she had broken his nose anyway, because it was just that kind of day.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	8. Chapter 8: Crossing Guard

Arnold lurked in the shadows, looking for a way in. He had been instructed to come to the FTi building at 4pm, in order to hand over a memory card filled with incriminating evidence in exchange for Helga's freedom. The young man was tired of being pushed around, and fully expected this entire setup to be a trap. He made sure to show up an hour early, hoping to sneak in on his terms. So far he had only found one unguarded door around the back, and it was locked. Directly beside the door were three garbage cans, behind which he currently hid, watching the door and waiting for an opportunity.

He took this time to think about the situation, and marveled at the kind of people his family seemed to run afoul of. La Sombra, the old river pirate and smuggler, was a second-hand enemy. His parents had been the ones to cross him first, and Arnold had simply earned the man's hatred by default. He was still obsessed with obtaining the treasure of the Green-Eye people, and along with that he wanted vengeance upon those who had snatched his prize away from him at the moment of his victory. Capturing Arnold would serve both goals perfectly, which is one reason the football-headed young man knew to not to expect a fair and honest exchange if he arrived at the appointed time.

The other reason he expected a trap was simply because he wasn't stupid.

La Sombra's organization hadn't been cheap to get back into operation, and getting out of jail in the first place took a lot of pull from someone on the outside. That was the evidence Arnold had gone looking for, and found. This time it was an enemy he had made all on his own, a ruthless tycoon by the name of Alphonse Perrier du von Scheck, CEO of Future Tech Industries.

Scheck had tried to take over Arnold's neighborhood, wanting to level it at least partly to settle an old family grudge against the city. Arnold, with the help of Gerald and Helga, managed to get evidence then too, and used it to halt the demolition of their beloved neighborhood. Legal charges were brought against Scheck, but none of them stuck. Children breaking into a building and stealing a security tape didn't qualify as legally obtained evidence. At least that's what FTi's extremely well-paid lawyers successfully argued. Still, the Mayor had seen the evidence with her own eyes, and never again approved any of Scheck's development plans.

If Scheck wanted Arnold to suffer, while still keeping his own hands clean, what better way than to give a helping hand to a more hands-on person with the same goal? It was a clever plan, and almost totally impossible to prove. If you you happened to have downloaded an archive of communications between the two, complete with addresses and timestamps, that changed matters quite a bit. In the right hands, that data would do the trick. Arnold frowned, imagining having to hand the memory card over to save his friend, losing his best chance of solving his family's problems for good.

Of course, now that there was a kidnapping involved, Scheck's hands could get a lot dirtier if anyone found out. The safest solution would be to eliminate any witnesses. Would they really go that far? A chill ran down the spine of the hidden observer, suspecting that he knew the answer to that question.

Arnold heard a loud noise, quickly ducking out of sight completely. The door in front of him had been flung open, crashing against the wall as it swung. Someone ran out the door, speeding down of the alleyway in the opposite direction. Staying hidden, Arnold couldn't risk revealing himself just to get a look at the person. He waited, listening for the running footsteps to turn the corner, then sprung out of hiding. Dashing to the door as it swung slowly shut, he managed to wedge the toe of his left foot into the opening at the last possible moment. The door was still open. This was it, he had gotten a way into the building. Now he just had to find Helga and escape together. Unfortunately, his current plan only got as far as entering the door. Now that he was inside, he'd have to play it by ear.

Sneaking down a hallway, Arnold wasn't sure where to go next. He had been trying to stay out of sight of the building's security cameras, though he knew that was a futile gesture. The best he could do was to go by them quickly enough and hope nobody was watching at that moment. It was better than nothing, and with any luck the new eyes on the monitors today would be more focused on the front entrance, where he was expected to be arriving soon. The building towered above him, and Helga could be hidden away anywhere. Thankfully the building appeared to be deserted, not even a cleaning crew was around to make noise. Even on a Saturday afternoon that seemed suspicious. On consideration, that made the young man even more sure this was a trap, since someone was making sure there would be no witnesses for the afternoon's events. Deciding that the elevator was too risky, he opened the door to the building stairwell and ducked inside.

Taking another pause to think, a question crossed Arnold's mind. How had they known? La Sombra's had mentioned to Phil that they knew his Grandson was in the building, and they seemed so certain. Why then? They had also known to show up at Helga's parents' house after they retrieved the letter. Did they look up the license plate on the scooter? Perhaps, though somehow that didn't feel right. These jerks knew things, it was like they had eyes on him, but how?

Standing in the stairwell, there were two options. Arnold could start heading up, searching every floor one-by-one. That didn't sound promising to him. The stairs also went downward, to a basement. He hadn't known there was a basement in this building, and that seemed like a much more likely place to hide a kidnapping victim anyway. Taking the steps softly and cautiously, he descended.

The FTi building's security system had been set up with a few crucial things in mind. Sometimes what any crooked businessman needs is a place where he can do things in private, without being observed. These things might not be quite on the up-and-up, so it was quite useful to have a room with no cameras that might accidentally record the things one does there. In this building, that room was the basement. The sound-proof concrete walls, heavy doors, and lack of cameras meant that whatever happened down here wouldn't draw any unwanted attention. If a person was chained up down here, they could scream for help all they wanted, but nobody was going to hear them unless they happened to be coming to the basement. That's why Helga had been chained up here in the first place.

That is also why Carlos was still chained up there now. Arnold didn't know his name, but he recognized him as one of the men he had bowled over on his stoop earlier that day before riding away on the pink scooter. The man had the same nondescript blue polo shirt, same khaki pants, and the same greasy brown hair Arnold had spotted earlier. What had changed was his nose, which looked painfully crooked and had clearly spilled blood all down his shirt. The man was moaning, occasionally making a hopelessly half-hearted cry for help. He also seemed to be handcuffed to some of the pipework sticking out of the wall. Arnold had been trying to imagine what he might expect to find, and this had definitely not been among the possibilities he had prepared himself for. It left him feeling oddly off-balance.

"Um… Hi?" said the intruding young man, a bit too confused to think of anything cool to say. He had wanted to sound intimidating, hoping to have just the right tough-guy line to show that he meant business. At this, he had totally failed. "So, um… what happened here?"

Carlos snapped his head up at the sound, not realizing someone had entered the room. A beat later he froze, not really knowing what to do next. He had two orders, guard the girl, and capture the football-head boy if he comes this way. Carlos had utterly botched the first part, and knew that he was in no position to succeed at the second part. His shoulders sagged once more.

"What happened? Well, for starters I'm gonna get fired. That's for sure. Heck, I'll be lucky if I'm fired rather than being fired at. I was supposed to watch that girlfriend of yours, but…" the beaten guard clearly didn't want to admit what had really happened here, it was just too much to bear. "She got the drop on me. Sweet-talked me into telling her how to get out, then, um…" He gestured to his horrific nose by way of explanation.

Arnold couldn't help but grin, Helga was safe! He found himself feeling slightly foolish that he had even assumed she'd need him to rescue her in the first place. He should have known her better than that. He wondered how long ago she had left, and which way she went, so he asked. Carlos replied, and his interrogator's eyes slowly opened wide before he slapped himself on the forehead in annoyance. Well, that explained how he had gotten in the building so easily. There was no reason to be here any longer, so Arnold decided to make a quick exit.

"Please!" cried the handcuffed man as Arnold turned to go, "There's a maintenance closet beneath the stairwell, with a toolbox in it. There's a saw in there. Please, all I want to do is get away now. I'm through here, and I promise I won't bother you ever again, I just want to leave town."

Arnold considered this. He walked out to the closet, found the saw, and returned. He held it out to the nervous man, then pulled it back. "I'll give you this, but first I want to know something. You people knew where I was, knew where I was going. How did you know?"

Carlos answered again, truthfully. This part he hadn't mentioned to Helga, simply because she hadn't asked. Arnold's jaw dropped, and he silently handed the saw over without another word. Turning to the stairs, he ran up and across and out the door he had come in through. He ran out of the alleyway and started across the street, but having grown too used to the rarity of cars in the jungles of San Lorenzo, he forgot to look both ways first.

There was a screech of tires as the driver of the small sedan tried to stop in time. She almost succeeded. Arnold was bowled over by the car, not hurt badly, but disoriented and splayed across the hood. His face was pressed against the windshield, as his bleary eyes began to focus on the driver and passenger on the other side of the glass. He blinked a few times, sure that he must have hit his head a bit harder than he realized.

From inside the car, two of Arnold's oldest and best friends, stared back at him in shock. For a long moment, nobody spoke or moved. Finally the football-headed accident victim pulled his face off the glass and gave a lopsided, slightly dazed grin. He tried to seem casual as he asked, "Hey guys, can I get a lift?"

Phoebe Heyerdahl sat behind the wheel, still stunned, but starting to giggle at the absurdity of it all. Gerald Johanssen sat in the passenger seat smiling, clearly happy to see that his friend seemed largely unharmed. More than that, he was happy to see his friend at all.

"Y'know, you're not the first person to ask us that tonight."

* * *

**To be continued...**


	9. Chapter 9: The Waiting Game

Alphonse Perrier du von Scheck sat in his prison cell at Hillwood Minimum Security Penitentiary, thinking. He only had two months left in his prison sentence, and soon he would be a free man once more. Perhaps even better than that, he would soon have his revenge on the brat who put him in here in the first place.

He was a tall, imposing man, with dark hair and a cruel smile. He had been accustomed to finely-tailored suits and expensive haircuts, but those were beyond his reach at the moment. Scheck was never the most level-headed of men. He had once tried to bulldoze a neighborhood just to get even with a town he felt had wronged his family in the 18th century, which was ultimately why he was wearing a prison-issue orange jumpsuit today. Forgiving and forgetting were not in his nature.

"Scheck," shouted a guard as he walked past the other cells, "you've got a visitor!"

The prisoner gave a crocodile grin as he stood and stepped to his cell door. Hopefully this would be the news he had been waiting for. He had been imprisoned, but a man of his resources still had ways of getting things done on the outside. His company was still running in his absence, and there were still people who could arrange things for him for a price. One such plan had been years in the making, and was finally about to come to fruition.

Scheck was escorted down a hallway and into one of the visiting rooms. It was a small room, divided across the middle by a wall with a reinforced glass window. There was a chair and a shelf on either side of the window, and a telephone handset on each side for communication. Scheck considered it overkill for a minimum-security facility, but he hadn't been able to get around this particular rule. He sat in the chair and looked through the glass.

On the other wide was an older man, his skin leathery from years in the sun, with gray hair and a relaxed attitude. He wore khaki pants and what appeared to be a blue bowling shirt. He also had a wide-brimmed hat, though it was currently sitting on his lap as he brushed a bit of dust off of it distractedly.

Both men picked up their respective telephone receivers. Scheck looked pointedly at the guard, who exited to give them a bit more privacy than was generally granted during such visits. He was a reasonably honest man, but a small bribe for what seemed like such a harmless bit of privacy had felt like a good deal to him.

"La Sombra, how lovely to see you today. How is our venture proceeding?" asked Scheck.

"Oh, it's going very well today," replied the old river pirate, "In fact I expect to be hearing word any minute now."

"Did you have much trouble finding them?"

"Oh no, your informant kept us in the loop just as you said he would. He told us when the boy arrived at his old home, just as promised. Though the brats were gone before we could catch them there," La Sombra lied bit, seeing no profit in mentioning that his own men failed to grab a teenage boy and girl, "he found out where they were going next."

"But you don't have them yet?"

"We got the girl with the eyebrow," replied La Sombra, swiping his finger across his brow in an illustrative gesture, "and she'll bring him to us. The trap has been baited, and I expect to have the boy in our hands within the hour."

"And the bait herself?"

"When we're done with her, I promise you she won't be in a position to tell anything to anybody. I don't like loose ends any more than you do."

Scheck nodded approvingly, pleased to be dealing with a proper professional. "I'm so glad to hear that Oskar proved useful."

"I don't know where you found this Kokoshka fella, but he's some piece of work. He'd sell his own mother if he thought he could make a buck on it. Getting him to sell out his landlord and a couple kids he knew from the neighborhood? It was almost embarrassing how little I had to pay him for that." He placed his hat back on his head idly and chuckled. "That man needs some self respect."

"Oh, he wouldn't be nearly as useful if he stopped being bottom-feeding scum, now would he?" Scheck asked, amusedly feigning innocence.

The two men shared a hearty laugh at this, cut short when La Sombra's pocket started to buzz. He reached in and pulled out a cheap, disposable mobile phone, flashing Scheck a grin before answering it.

"Ahh, Arnold, you fell right into my tr-" He stopped abruptly, every muscle in his body locked into position. "What? What do you mean escaped? How could that happen?"

It took all of Scheck's willpower to hold back a scream, knowing it might bring the guards' attention upon them, but he wanted to roar with anger at what he had just heard. He gritted his teeth and an involuntary growl escaped from his throat, but he said nothing.

"You fools! Find them, now! I'll be there to deal with things myself soon enough," La Sombra said this last line with a particularly menacing tone, obviously it was a threat. He sighed as he ended the call, slamming the telephone down on the shelf. He stared at the ground for several seconds, head down, trying to retain his composure. His breathing slowed back to normal, and he looked up into the stone face of Scheck.

"This boy is a slippery one, I'll give him that. He takes after his parents." La Sombra frowned, "Not slippery enough though. I'll have him before this night is out. When I have their son, they will lead me to La Corazón. Then I can finally put all three of them down like the dogs they are."

"Four."

La Sombra looked up with an evil smirk, "Oh yes, four. The girl is part of this now too. We can't forget her."

Scheck gave a cold, intense stare. "Go."

La Sombra tipped his hat and called for a guard to let him back out. In a way, he realized he was a bit glad this is how things had turned out. He was going to enjoy hunting them down himself. He needed the boy alive, at least until he was of no more use. The girl, however... she was fair game.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	10. Chapter 10: Reunion

Helga Pataki stared up at the sky. From her spot in the alley she didn't have a view of the sunset itself, but she could see its effect beginning to change the color of the sky and highlighting the thinning clouds with golden light. It was beautiful. Helga began to reach for the ever-present pink notebook in the messenger bag at her side, but stopped herself. This wasn't the time, she was supposed to be watching for her ride. She also had to worry about how to find Arnold, before his chivalrous streak would land him in a trap. She had been the bait in that trap less than a half-hour ago, but being cooperative about that sort of thing really wasn't in her nature.

A car pulled up to the mouth of the alley and stopped, giving a short honk of its horn. Helga dashed to the sedan, threw open the passenger-side rear door, leapt in and slammed the door behind her in one fluid motion. She immediately leaned between the passenger and driver seats and started speaking fast, a slight pant in her voice from the burst of activity.

"Phoebe! Gerald! Arnold's in town!"

"Um… Yeah, we know," Replied Gerald with a curious smile.

"He's probably in this neighborhood somewhere!"

"Yeah, I bet he is." Gerald looked amused, and Phoebe giggled as she started to drive again.

"We have to find him! He could be walking int-"

"Helga," He replied patiently.

"I don't know where to start looking, he migh-"

"Pataki!" Gerald shouted, then turned his glare to the other half of the car's rear seat.

Helga looked directly beside her. In her flurry of excitement, she had somehow completely failed to notice that there was a fourth passenger in the car. Sitting on on the other side of the same bench-seat was Arnold, looking angelically innocent, though with a highly amused grin spreading across his face. He gave a small wave, since it seemed like the safest response at that moment.

Helga was going to speak, but Phoebe interrupted. "We stopped along the way for some Ice Cream." She giggled once more, Arnold and Gerald both looking at her in puzzlement.

In the back-seat though, Helga's face was turning a bright shade of pink. In their elementary school days, "Ice Cream" had been Arnold's code-name when Helga talked to Phoebe about her feelings for the boy. She was relived to see that her secret had been kept so far, considering the confused looks on the faces of both boys. On the other hand, Phoebe's little inside joke was bound to lead to follow-up questions. Ok, time to go on the offensive and hope that everyone forgets.

"Criminy, Football Head! What the heck are you doing here?"

"Well, the guys who took you left a note. Told me to meet them at the FTi building, with the memory card." Arnold explained, mentally noting to ask about ice cream later. "So I showed up there a little bit early and planned to sneak in the back way to look for you."

"Oh?" she quirked her eyebrow at him "And how did that work out?"

"Well, _somebody_ ran out the rear door I was watching, so I ran in and started at the basement. I assume the goon with the bleeding nose was your doing?"

"Naturally."

"So I asked him a few questions and ran back out before anyone else noticed I was there. How did you get free?," Arnold gave a slightly sheepish smile, "I guess you didn't need my help after all."

"I used my feminine wiles on poor ol' Carlos. He didn't stand a chance," she batted her eyelashes at him, "and actually, you helped me more than you might think." She pulled a short piece of stiff silvery wire from her front pocket and handed it to him, which after a few seconds of examination was recognizable as a broken paper-clip.

"Um… That doesn't actually explain anything." Arnold finally said, after a few moments of thought. She pulled the his letter out of her pocket, and pointed to an indentation in the corner of the pages, where the pages had clearly been worn-in by the now-absent paper-clip.

Helga folded the papers back up again. "Anyway, we can talk about the details later. Right now we need to figure out what our next move is."

"Did you… y'know… Did you read the letter?"

Helga blushed once more, just a little, turning her gaze downward. "I did. I want to talk to you about it. I really do… but not right now. This isn't the right time or place. Ok, Football Head?" She looked up into his eyes as she said this last part.

Arnold wasn't sure how to feel about her response. There was a certain softness in the way she said "Football Head," As she said it just now, it felt more like a term of endearment than a playground insult. Was this a new thing, or just something he never noticed before? He was unsure, but also knew she was right about finding a better time and place to talk about it.

Arnold nodded once at Helga before breaking their stare, and turned toward Gerald and Phoebe in the front seats. "So, any suggestions? I'm coming up a bit dry at the moment. We need to get the evidence to my Mom's colleague. He's a professor at the local college. I don't have his home phone number or address though. I tried looking him up online, but he's pretty private about his home life."

"So you're saying we can't find him until classes start on Monday, right?"

Arnold sighed, "Right. We've got to stay safe until then. We can't go back to the Boarding House right now, La Sombra would know the moment we arrive."

Helga frowned at this statement, "How do you know that? Did you figure out how they were tracking us?"

The football-headed young man gritted his teeth, looking genuinely angry. "Yeah. We've been sold out. Kokoshka has been telling them everything he knows. Luckily, he's so self-centered that he never paid much attention to the other kids in the neighborhood, so Gerald and Phoebe shouldn't be in any danger. But he knows me, he knows you, and he's been listening in on our calls to my Grandpa."

Helga remembered Oskar Kokoshka seeing them in her… Arnold's… the bedroom shortly before La Sombra's men arrived. That lazy weasel never gets out of bed before breakfast is ready, yet there he was, as if he knew to expect something. If she hadn't been distracted by the sudden appearance of her childhood love in her own bedroom, that probably would have been enough to made her suspicious.

She balled up her fists and growled, her eyes narrowed, shaking with a barely-contained rage. "When I get my hands on Kokoshka, I'm going to tear his eyes out through his belly-button and nail them to his forehead. I'll skin him, dump him in a bathtub full of lemon juice, and throw in a hungry tiger. I'll cut out his intestines and make him use them to go bungee-jumping. _Then_ I'm going to start to get unpleasant."

"Oh dear." gasped Phoebe, worry evident in her voice as she continued to drive. She hadn't seen her best friend in a mood like this for quite a long time, and was a bit concerned.

Helga seethed with rage for a bit longer, noticing that the car had gone completely silent. She looked up into Arnold's face, which broke into a smile again.

"I've missed you, Helga G. Pataki." Said Arnold, wistfully.

The young woman's rage evaporated instantly, replaced by sort of a confused giddiness. She wasn't sure what reaction she would have expected from him for her outburst of pure venom, but that was definitely not it. Still, she wasn't complaining. Baffled, but calmer, she shook her head a few times to clear the cobwebs and changed the subject.

"Ok, at least for this evening, how about we stick to my original plan for the weekend. Let's go to the Hillwood Cheese Festival."

"What? We're being hunted and you want nachos?"

"Of course I want nachos, Football Head, but that's just a bonus. Think about it. La Sombra's goons want to get to us, but they need to do it quietly. That's why they cornered us at the Sunset Arms in the morning, or Bob & Miriam's empty house after that. They can't afford to draw attention. Logically the safest place to hide would be in a big crowd, and the biggest crowd we're likely to find around here is the festival."

Arnold gave this some thought, and it seemed to make sense. Then his eyes lit up and he added to her idea. "Yeah, that could work. We can make this even easier on ourselves with a little help from Oskar."

"Kokoshka?" Gerald chimed in, "what makes you think he's going to help. He's not the most helpful person in the world. In fact, he may actually be the least helpful person in the world. Even if you could bribe him with more than he's already being paid, I'd still be waiting for a knife in the back at any moment."

"That's the easy part. We don't have to trust him to do the right thing, we just have to trust him to be Oskar Kokoshka. Helga, can I borrow your phone?"

* * *

Phil picked up one of the boarding house's phones before the second ring. Clearly he had been waiting there, hoping for a call from his Grandson. Arnold started with a bit of small talk, just saying he was safe, they were hidden, and the usual pleasantries. Holding his breath and listening, he could faintly hear the breathing of a third person on the line.

Their little chat had an audience. Excellent.

"Grandpa, Helga and I are going to go to Quigley Stadium. It's closed, but her cousin is a night janitor there and can get us in. It's big, quiet, and we should be safe hiding there all night. No need to worry about us, ok?" Arnold felt slightly bad about lying to his Grandfather, but knew it was more than worth the trouble if Oskar was listening in.

"Well, ok Short-Man, you be careful."

Arnold hung up the phone and handed it back to Helga, who gave him an honest look of approval and a slight nod. "Crafty, Arnoldo. Didn't know you had it in you."

He winked back at her, "I learned from the best."

* * *

**To be continued...**


	11. Chapter 11: Festival

Once again, the Hillwood Cheese Festival was in full swing. The city park and an adjacent empty lot had been filled with booths, decorations, carnival rides, and tents. Inticing scents of corn-dogs and caramel corn filled the air, noise and light coming from every direction. A crowd of people filled festival grounds, perfect for two people to get lost in, if that was their goal.

Phoebe Heyerdahl pulled her car up to the curb about a block away from the festival and stopped, engine still running.

"Ok, Arnold," started Gerald, confirming their plans. "You and Helga hang out at the festival and mingle, where that Sombra guy's hired muscle won't want to come get you. Hopefully they won't even know you're there. Meanwhile Pheebs and I will swing by the boarding house pretending to look for Helga."

Arnold looked a bit concerned, "Are you sure you're ok with that, Gerald? I mean, it shouldn't be dangerous, but…"

"Arnold, my man, I said I'm doing this. We'll just go in, make sure your Grandpa is ok, warn him in private about Kokoshka, and leave. We'll be in and out in a matter of minutes. Piece of cake."

"Thanks, Gerald. And you too, Phoebe."

"Dōitashimashite," said Phoebe. Then she squeaked, "Ooh, hold on a second!" and jumped out of the car after jabbing the trunk-release button on the dash. She rustled around for a bit in the trunk before returning with an armload of cloth.

"They've seen you today, so they know what you're wearing. This might help a bit, just in case." The smiling girl handed Arnold a forest green zip-up sweatshirt with a hood, and handed a lightweight purple windbreaker to Helga. It was a brisk Autumn night, not cold enough to necessarily demand jackets, but cool enough to wear them.

Arnold removed his flannel shirt and put the hoodie on over the plain gray t-shirt beneath. He pulled the hood up, which didn't totally hide the distinctive shape of his head, but did make it less obvious. Helga slipped the windbreaker on. She was significantly taller and somewhat bulkier than Phoebe, but her petite friend always had a preference for extra-baggy clothing, so it was actually a pretty good fit.

"Got a hair brush, Pheebs?" Helga asked, as she untied the bow from her head, letting her hair down. Phoebe handed her a brush out of the car's center console, the blonde woman quickly tidied up her locks after a long day of pigtails and tangles. There was no way she could go without her bow, not on this night. She pondered for a moment, then tried to tie it around her wrist. It was more difficult to do one-handed than she had anticipated.

Arnold didn't question her need for the bow, he long ago realized there was some similarity between Helga's relationship with her bow, and his own former need to keep his signature little blue hat on his head at all times. He didn't know why the bow was important, he just knew it was, and that was enough.

"Here, let me." He gently pushed Helga's fumbling hand aside as it had once again failed in making the proper loops to form a bow. He took both ends of the ribbon, and with a few simple looping motions had made a perfect bow. "How's that? Not too tight?"

Helga was a little tongue-tied, the brief contact between their hands making her go all soft inside. "Y-yeah, that's great, thanks."

She looked at him for a moment out of one eye, realizing her hair had fallen over the left side of her face while she was working with the ribbon. It always seemed to do that, which was one reason she preferred to wear it tied back. But tonight's outing was all about not looking like themselves, so she could make an exception. Helga noticed Arnold staring at her like he was trying to work out a puzzle. She brushed her hair out of her eyes once again.

"What is it, Football Head?"

Arnold shuddered slightly as he snapped back to his senses. "Sorry, you just reminded me of… It's nothing. Ready to go?"

She nodded, gave little fist-bumps to Phoebe and Gerald as she climbed out of the car. Arnold gave Gerald one of their old secret handshakes, and patted Phoebe on the shoulder. "Thanks again, guys. Helga has her phone, just let me know that Grandpa is safe, ok?"

"Will do. You kids have fun on your date now, got it?" he said with a wink. Helga glared daggers at him.

Phoebe spoke with a giggle in her voice, and just loud enough for everyone to hear clearly, "Oh Gerald, I think you've given her an Ice Cream headache."

"Phoebe!" Helga shouted, eyes wide with surprise. Her friend was already driving away now, clearly laughing to herself as she went.

"What was that about," inquired Arnold.

"I think her little fiancée there is a bad influence on her, that's what."

The pair started to walk down the block, toward the festival.

"They're engaged?" asked Arnold in surprise. "Wow. Good for them!"

"Yeah, he popped the question right after graduation. We all knew it was just a matter of when, not if. Those two have been head-over-heels for each other almost as long as I-" Helga caught herself almost saying too much. "Almost as long as I've known them. They finally admitted it to each other sometime around 8th grade, and that was that."

They kept walking, both smiling to themselves at how lucky their best friends were to have found each other and fallen together so easily.

"The wedding is still a couple years off, they're in no hurry. Gerald was stressing over the fact that his best-man for the event was lost in the Jungle somewhere. Guess that's one problem solved. If you stay, that is…"

She seemed sad when she finished that sentence, as if she wanted him to stay, but didn't really believe he would. Or was he just imagining things? Arnold wanted to ask her about his letter that she had read, finding himself a bit short of the courage to do so. Before he could, the scents of the delicious, artery-clogging fried carnival food hit him full force. They had just walked into the festival proper, and there were mouth-watering smells coming from all sides. His stomach growled loud enough that Helga heard it and laughed.

"You too, huh? We haven't eaten anything all day." Without thinking, she grabbed Arnold by the hand and pulled him toward the food court. A moment later she realized she was holding hands with Arnold, and on reflex she relaxed her hand to let go, but the connection wasn't broken. He was gripping her hand too.

"Um, I figured we'd blend in better if we looked like a couple, lots of them around tonight." She tried not to give a nervous laugh, but did so anyway. "Got a problem with that, Hair-Boy?"

Arnold smiled, "Whatever you say, Helga." She didn't speak, unable to think of a comeback, and wanting only to savor this moment.

Neither let go until they reached the semi-circle of food tents and trucks at one corner of the park. As hungry as they were, the volume of food they intended to purchase was going to require at least two hands each, if not a wheelbarrow. They split up to make their purchases, agreeing to meet back at a particular patch of grass beside the pond at the park's center.

* * *

A few minutes later, Arnold walked to their meeting spot. He was carrying two corn-dogs, a tray of deep-fried cheese sticks, a pretzel, and a bottle of Yahoo soda. Not the healthiest meal he had ever eaten, but it had been years since he'd had some proper American junk food, so he had some catching up to do. Arnold sat down beside Helga in the grass, who was happily chowing down on an enormous plate of nachos, with occasional sips from her own bottle of Yahoo. She had clearly opted for volume rather than variety.

The pair sat like that for a while, eating and looking out over the pond. Both stole the occasional glances at the other as they ate. It wasn't that they were too polite to speak with their mouths full, though that was probably true in Arnold's case, they were merely too busy eating to speak.

The unspoken tension between them was also partly to blame for their silence. There had been a few things they had decided to put off talking about until later, and once the food was gone, they would be out of excuses. They both had things to say, things they dearly wanted to say, but at the same time it was just so awkward finding a way to begin. Sure enough, the moment she ate her last cheese-drenched tortilla chip and he downed his last swig of soda, the awkward silence began.

Finally Helga took the plunge. She spoke with a voice softer, more gentle than perhaps anyone had ever heard her use. "Arnold," Helga asked, eyes closed to help steady her nerves, "I did read your letter. Thank you."

"Thank you? For what?"

Helga opened her eyes, the shimmer of barely restrained tears sparkling in the carnival lights. "The day we met, I don't know if you remember it. I was three years old. It was the beginning of preschool, and I was having the worst day of my life. My parents totally neglected me, I had to walk to school all alone in the rain with no jacket, a dog stole my lunch-box… at that moment I was the most miserable little girl in the whole world."

She closed her eyes again and continued. "Then a little boy walked up to me. He noticed me. He talked to me. He shared his umbrella with me. He said he liked my bow." Here Helga held out her left wrist briefly so he could see the cherished pink ribbon he had tied there earlier. "He wasn't actually treating me specially, he would have shared his umbrella with anyone who needed it that morning. That's just the kind of person he is. I don't think he ever knew that it was perhaps the single greatest moment of happiness that anyone had ever given me. For him, being nice was just what he did."

"Helga. I didn't-" Arnold began, but he was softly shushed.

"Sorry, Football Head, but now that I've started, I have to finish this. I'm afraid if I stop now, I'll never find the nerve to start again. Ok?"

Arnold nodded, watching her face as she began to speak again. There was a softness there, vulnerability that seemed unfamiliar. This was Helga G. Pataki, sad little girl. Helga G. Pataki, independent young woman. This was not, however, Helga G. Pataki, schoolyard bully. There was not a trace of that girl to be found.

"I fell in love with you then, Arnold." She steeled her nerves, still not opening her eyes. Seeing his reaction would have been just too much for her to take right now, good or bad. "Right then and there I fell head-over-heels in love with the kindest, gentlest, sweetest little football-headed boy in the whole wide world."

She opened her eyes for a moment, but didn't look up. She reached both hands behind her neck and unhooked the clasp of a silver chain, pulling a golden heart-shaped locket from inside her shirt. She unlocked the latch on the locket itself, but didn't swing it open. Placing it into Arnold's hand without ever looking at his face, she closed her eyes once more.

"It was just a little girl's crush. Happens all the time. Sooner or later the boy does something to make the girl realize he's not the guy she thought he was, and that's the end of that. But you… you never did. I didn't fall for you because you were the most handsome, or the richest, or the most popular kid in class. I fell for you because you were the kindest. And in that, you never let me down."

Arnold opened the locket. Inside he found an old school picture of himself, from ten or eleven years old. There was an inscription inside the lid of the locket, facing the small photograph.

_Arnold my soul, you are always in my heart. Love Helga G. Pataki_

"I'd seen you with your locket lots of times back then, and I always wondered what you kept in there that was so important to you. Is this really what's been in there this whole time?"

She nodded slowly. "I got a new picture every year, and didn't have the inscription done until 4th grade, but yeah. It's always been you."

"Wow, that's… wow. But I thought you hated me? You said so enough times." Replied Arnold, mentally far off-balance.

Helga sighed. "With my dysfunctional family, I learned to watch out for myself early on. I had to be strong, because nobody was going to be strong for me. Early on, some of the other kids noticed me watching you with a dreamy expression, and they made fun of me. Instinct took over, and I did the only thing that I could. I went on the offense. I denied everything. I bullied everyone until the idea of Helga G. Pataki ever giving a boy lovesick stares just sounded absurd."

"Even me?" asked Arnold, softly.

"Even you. Especially you. I acted like you were my worst enemy every day, and absolutely loathed myself for doing it. However much I may have bullied everyone else, I bullied myself even more. I wanted to tell you everything, but I was too afraid to show my one vulnerability. I couldn't stop myself, no matter how hard I tried."

Tears began to leak from Helga's closed eyelids. She closed them even tighter in an attempt to hold them back, but that didn't help.

"I thought I would get over you eventually. For a while there, I convinced myself that I had done it. But then you come back into town and I start… feeling things. I realize that I had never filled in the gaping hole you left in my heart, I had just wallpapered over it and pretended it wasn't there. I had so many chances to tell you how I really felt, and I blew them all. I just wish I could have… I wish we could have at least… I mean if we…"

There was a loud popping noise, followed by a shrill scream, causing Helga and Arnold to turn and look. They saw a crying little girl holding a string with a bit of frayed rubber on the end. A middle-aged woman hurried to the child, picking her up and drying her tears before walking away in the direction of a booth selling helium balloons.

The spell had been broken. Helga had stopped talking, and now wasn't sure how to start again. She looked at Arnold, searching for some sign as to how he felt about all this. It was a confession over sixteen years in the making, and in a way it felt good to finally have that weight off of her shoulders. At the same time, the anticipation of his reaction was like a bolt of lightning dancing around inside her ribcage.

Arnold stood up, brushing the grass off his pants as he rose. He smiled down at her and offered her a hand up.

"Now what?" Helga asked, blankly.

"Definitely the ferris wheel.

"Huh?"

"Really, Helga?," Arnold flashed her a smile that made her heart melt, "What kind of couple could go to a carnival for their first date and _not_ go on the ferris wheel together?"

* * *

**To be continued...**


	12. Chapter 12: Carnival

Arnold took Helga's hand and helped her to her feet. At first she was unable to speak, not entirely able to believe what she had just heard. "Did… did you just call us a couple? On a date? Like a real… like a date-date? Us? Together?"

"Yes, Helga. Is that ok?"

Arnold looked down into his hands, where he saw his own face smiling back at him across more than half of a decade. Closing the locket gently, he took one end of the silver chain in each hand and reached under the collar of her jacket and around Helga's slender neck. He fastened the clasp, securing the silver and gold necklace around her neck where it belonged. He pulled his hands back slowly, and for a moment simply rested them on her shoulders, hesitating.

Helga noticed something odd then. Arnold's hands were trembling. His neck twitched ever so slightly, she would have missed it if she wasn't this close. His voice, his demeanor, he was keeping them as calm as ever, but underneath it all he was… nervous? He was nervous, because of her? Why was he trying so hard to hide it?

She suddenly realized the answer, and in that moment loved him even more than ever before. He was holding on to his composure because right now she couldn't. Just minutes ago Helga had told him that she had learned as a child to be strong for herself, because nobody else would be there to be strong for her. Yet here was Arnold, struggling to hold everything together for her because at this moment it's what he felt she needed most. He was right, too. He was exactly right.

Helga's expression had frozen, her eyes beginning to glisten again. Arnold started to remove his hands from her shoulders, not sure what this reaction was about, and worried he had overstepped some boundary. The instant Helga felt his hands moving away, she pounced on him, wrapping her arms around his neck and squeezing him in a fierce hug.

"Did you seriously just ask me if it's ok that I'm on a date with the boy of my dreams? Or that he called us a couple? Criminy, you can be dense sometimes, Football Head." Helga laughed, then planted a kiss just behind his ear, being the only place she could reach while holding him this tightly.

Once again Arnold noticed the harmonics of her old nickname for him, realizing that there wasn't an ounce of malice in it. He had never been particularly fond of that name before, thinking of it as a rude schoolyard insult. Now he felt the truth. She was calling him _her_ Football Head, she may as well have just called him her beloved, because from her lips they meant the same thing. Arnold hugged her back.

They stood there for a long moment before separating, not wanting to cause too big of a scene in public. Technically speaking, they were here trying to keep a low profile still, though that thought was mostly drowned out by so many others spinning around in their heads.

Helga took Arnold firmly by the hand and tugged, "C'mon Arnold, we've got an appointment with a ferris wheel." They ran across the park, to the lot where the carnival rides and games had been set up. Stopping briefly to buy a pocketful of ride tickets from a ticket booth, they got in line for the ride.

Helga knew she was standing on the ground, but she felt as if she was floating in the air. Arnold was maintaining his calm exterior, mostly anyway, but his heart was racing. Less than an hour ago he had been hiding out at a Festival with his grade-school bully, but now he was on a date with his girlfriend. He felt giddy, and more than a little confused still, but he wouldn't trade this feeling for anything.

They were seated together in the ferris wheel car, and the ride lurched into motion. They rose above the lights and noise of the carnival, looking out over what parts of the city weren't obscured by even taller buildings. Not for the first time, Arnold felt so good to be back home where he belonged. Even more, he had a whole new reason to stay.

"So, Arnold. The letter wasn't finished. What were you going to say at the end there?"

"Well, that's just it. I never knew what I should say, what the right word was to put on that line. I missed you, I wished every day that I could see you, and part of me felt missing without you." Arnold rubbed at the back of his neck nervously, "I think there's a word for that… but it's a pretty big word. Especially across thousands of miles and a handful of years. All for a girl who, for all I knew, might have forgotten my name by then."

"If only you knew." Helga chuckled, "I was sort of your stalker back in the day, Football Head. If you knew half of the loopy crap I did trying to get you to suddenly believe you liked me, or just for excuses to be close to you, you'd think I was crazy."

"Try me."

"Remember how I was only fourth understudy for the school play, meaning there were four Juliets ahead of me in line to give you a kiss onstage? I had to find ways to talk all of them out of wanting to do the part. That took some doing, let me tell you."

Arnold chuckled, but it was a warm sound, which helped Helga to relax. "Seriously?"

"Yep. Worth it."

"Naah, that's not that crazy." Arnold said, a hint of a challenge in his tone.

"Ok, fine. Remember Rhonda's costume party in fourth grade when I cam dressed as Lila? It wasn't just me dressing up as a classmate on a whim there. I had Lila training me for a week how to act just like her, entirely because I knew you had a crush on her and wanted to get some of that attention for myself."

Arnold looked slightly stunned, but held on to his composure. "I always kind of wondered about that night. Anything crazier?"

Helga felt like he was playing with her, which he most definitely was. Ok, time to pull out the big guns. Helga swept some of her hair in front of her face, batting her eyelashes at him coquettishly. "Oh Arnold, we'll always have Chez Paris."

Arnold stammered for a few seconds. "Cecile? The girl who pretended to be my pen-pal from France, just so she could get me on a Valentines' date, that was you?"

She blushed, wondering if she had gone a bit too far with that revelation. "Yeah, that was me. I was so frustrated trying to tell you how I really felt without mean ol' Helga G. Pataki getting in the way. When Valentines' day came around, I decided maybe I'd have better luck if I could be someone else for the night. It was going so well too, until the real Cecile had to crash our party."

Arnold stared at her for a moment, then started to laugh. Helga was afraid his reaction would have been worse, and in her relief she joined in the laughter.

"Ok, your turn to spill something, Arnoldo. What happened with your little blue hat? You never used to go anywhere without it."

"Truth is, I just don't need it now. It hadn't really fit me in years anyway, but I always kept it with me because my parents gave it to me just before they left. It was my last memento of them, and I had to hold onto it. It reminded me that they might still be out there, somewhere, and maybe one day I'd find them. Then one day I did find them, and suddenly it was just a worn-out and badly fitting hat."

This all made sense to Helga, who just nodded. Sometimes she forgot that there was quite a lot of hidden depth to Arnold, and much of it was kept inside because of pain and fear. She could understand him exactly now. That thought made her feel even worse for the years of bullying, and Helga's face fell into a momentary frown.

Arnold saw the change, not quite understanding why, but as always he wanted to make her feel better. He put an arm around her waist and gave a gentle tug, sliding her over to join him on his side of the seat. She put her head on his shoulder, and they sat there for a long while just quietly enjoying the closeness as the ferris wheel continued to spin lazily through the night. The sights and sounds and smells of the Festival catching their attention once more as they prepared to disembark from the ride.

The rest of their date passed like a blur. The young lovers shared a cotton candy, along with more types of cheeses than they would ever be able to name. They laughed, they danced, they went on more rides. It was a blissful evening basking in each other's company, and they felt a contentment together that made them seem complete for the first time in years.

Then, the good news came. Helga's phone buzzed, and she snatched it out of her bag in a flash. It was a text message from Gerald.

_Good news. Boarding house is fine._

_Police caught La Sombra half an hour ago._

_You can come home now!_

Helga showed the phone to Arnold, excited. "It's over! You can stay in Hillwood now!"

They hugged each other, jumping up and down with excitement. Hand-in-hand they ran to the curb and hailed a taxi. Climbing into the back seat, Helga shouted "4040 Vine Street, and step on it!"

As the taxi pulled into traffic, Arnold excitedly threw his arms around Helga's neck and kissed her deeply on the mouth.

Helga let out a little moan of pleasure. Finally, everything was going right in her world.

* * *

La Sombra looked down at the mobile phone in his hands, looking at the last line of text he had sent. He was rather slow at typing on these little keypads, but he had no need to hurry anyway.

_You can come home now!_

He chuckled to himself, placing Gerald's phone on the workbench in the boarding house basement. Taking a hammer down from it's peg on the wall, he smashed the phone to pieces with a half-dozen solid whacks. He pulled his pistol, and old German Luger, out of his belt. La Sombra pointed the weapon vaguely in the direction of Gerald and Phoebe, who were tied up in one corner of the shadowy basement.

"Now, remember what I said. If either one of you tries to get loose and be a hero, I'll shoot you both. I don't want to kill anyone tonight," the old pirate lied, "but if you get in my way, I'll have to. Why, it's lucky I intercepted you before you managed to tell anyone anything, or there would be a lot more deaths on your heads already."

La Sombra grinned to himself smugly. Finally, everything was going right in his world.

* * *

**To be continued...**


	13. Chapter 13: Homecoming

Arnold's heart raced. In the past day he had arrived in hometown town as a stowaway on a cargo ship, been pursued by mercenaries, been lured into a trap by a madman, broken into an office building on a rescue mission, sped through town on a scooter, attacked hired goons on the steps of his own home, and been knocked out cold by one punch from his childhood bully. Despite all of that excitement, nothing had quickened his pulse as much as what was happening at this moment. He was kissing Helga G. Pataki like a long-lost lover, and she was kissing him back just as fiercely. They were in a taxi together, riding back to the boarding house he still though of as his real home.

His mind drifted away in a flood of bliss. Was this really happening?

The years Arnold spent in the jungles of Central America weren't particularly unhappy ones. He had found his parents, and got to be with them at last. More than that, he finally came to see just how impossible it would have been for them to some home to him. Over time, that knowledge helped to ease the pain he had felt from years of abandonment. Even when he was trapped in the hidden city of the Green-Eye people, he was still mostly happy. It wasn't home, but it was a fascinating and beautiful place, filled with wonderful people.

Through it all he had missed his friends dearly. He missed all of them, but found his mind drifting back to one person over and over again. Helga G. Pataki had been sort of a friend. She had been sort of an enemy as well, it was always complicated. Arnold had a special talent with people. He was a good listener, he paid attention to even small details, and his capacity for empathy was nearly limitless. Arnold could reach people in a way few others could. That was just his gift. When it came to Helga, however, he had always been stumped.

The problem wasn't that he couldn't read her in the same way that he could with other people. He thought this was the case, but he was wrong. Arnold had always been able to see exactly what emotions swam around in her mind, clear as day. The issue was that there was just too much going on in there, he could see them, but never comprehend how all those pieces could ever fit together. Helga was a bully, arrogant and bossy. She was also one of the most sensitive people he had ever known, and had a haunting timidness about her. What baffled Arnold was how she could display both sides of herself, sometimes at the exact same time.

Helga could wave her fist in his face with a snarl and a scowl, and Arnold could still somehow see a sadness and regret in her eyes as she did. She was an enigma to him.

It wasn't until they were apart that he started to truly sort out his feelings on the matter. If she was really so bad, why did he think about her every day? If she really hated him, as she'd tell anyone who would listen, then why was she always around? That led to yet another paradox in Arnold's mind. If she was always so terrible to him, why did he also get the inexplicable feeling that she was something like his guardian angel? He had strong and complex feelings for her, that was certain, but he just didn't have the words to explain them.

Eventually Arnold tried to get his feelings down on paper, which resulted in the not-quite-completed letter that ended up in Helga's hands. At this moment, he was extremely happy that he had written that letter.

The young man drifted back to reality, feeling Helga break off their kiss. He opened his eyes, finding himself staring directly into two pools of shimmering blue. Their foreheads were touching, resting against each other, and he noticed she was slightly out of breath. Attempting to speak, he only then realized he was breathing heavy himself.

"Wow." Was all he could think to say, and it came out as a pant.

Helga's cheeks were flushed, and her eyelids drooping just slightly. She sighed with contentment, "Y'know, a girl could get used to that sort of thing."

Arnold grinned, "Whatever you say, Helga."

"Whatever I say, huh?" she smiled back, "I'm going to hold you to that, Football Head."

They stared into each other's eyes for a moment longer before there was a gruff throat-clearing noise from the front seat of the taxi. Snapping back to reality once again, they both looked up to notice that the car had stopped. They had arrived at the Sunset Arms boarding house, their destination, and the driver was politely trying to draw their attention to that fact.

Helga hurriedly paid the driver, and the couple climbed out of the taxi, hand-in-hand. They stood on the sidewalk beneath a street-light, gazing up at the old, familiar building as it loomed above them. The stars were out tonight, though only faintly visible in the light-polluted city sky. As glad as he was to be home, Arnold was going to miss how clear and beautiful the starry sky could be when viewed from the isolated jungles of San Lorenzo.

They stood there listening for the ever-present noises of the boarding house. At any time you could usually hear people laughing, music playing, heated arguments, talking, singing, and all the sounds of a dozen or so lives happening under one roof. It's what Arnold had fallen asleep to every night for the first two-thirds of his life, and Helga had grown comfortable with those noises in the same way since she had moved in. It was the sound of home to both of them now.

It was all wrong.

The hairs on the back of Arnold's neck stood up. Helga gave a tiny shiver as a chill ran down her spine. There was a growing sense of tension between them as they both grew very still. None of of the expected sounds were in the air right now. The boarding house was silent. They looked at each other, wordlessly understanding that they sensed the same thing. Something wasn't right, and they needed to find out what it was.

Ducking low, they crept up to a first-floor window on the side of the building that faced into the kitchen.

"I had to jump out of this window once in fourth grade," Helga whispered, "after waking up at the breakfast table with your Grandma calling me Elanor Roosevelt."

"What?"

"Eh, I'll tell you later. Sorry, the silence was just creeping me out."

Helga pointed up at the windowsill above them. Together, they slowly stood tall enough to just see in through the window. The curtains were partly drawn, which made it a bit harder to see into the room, but thankfully made it even harder to see out.

All of the boarding house residents were there, seated at the dining room table. That made sense, it was the only single room with enough chairs for everybody at once. Their hands were all bound with duct-tape, though they weren't physically restrained to their chairs. The reason they stayed put were the three men with pistols standing near the kitchen doors. Arnold and Helga recognized them as La Sombra's men. Helga recognized the one she had met in the alley that morning, his nose looked broken and his left eye was nearly swollen shut. She felt a small wave of pride at seeing her handiwork.

Gerald and Phoebe were seated at the table too, bound just the same as the others, but thankfully appearing to be unharmed. That was one worry out of the way, at least for the moment, and explained how the now clearly false text message had come from Gerald's phone. Notably absent were Oskar Kokoshka and his Wife, though that wasn't much of a surprise. The spying pair ducked back out of sight and sidled along the wall a bit further toward the back.

"Now what, Arnold? Should we call the cops?"

"Last time, when they took you, the note said involving the authorities would get people killed. I believe them… at least enough that I'm afraid to risk it." Arnold slumped against the wall, "I've got to give myself up, Helga. It's the only way. Once he has me, he'll want to get out of town fast, everyone else should be safe."

"Like hell you will, Football Head," growled Helga in a sudden flare-up of anger, "There will be no noble self-sacrifice tonight, you got that? I will knock you out myself and stash you in a dumpster if I so much as think you're going to try something that stupid."

She glared at Arnold for a long moment, and he returned a timid nod. Helga calmed and continued.

"First, we need to know that there's only these three mooks in the boarding house to worry about. Then we distract them somehow, just to get them away from the kitchen. Get our friends untied and out. Then we can call the cops in to clean up once everyone has absconded."

"Absconded?"

"Gone, left, split, skedaddled, flown the coop. Jeez, Paste-For-Brains, get a thesaurus."

Arnold calmed just a bit, the old schoolyard banter between them bringing him a small measure of comfort.

"I didn't see Suzie there, Oskar's wife. Do you think she's in on it too?"

"Nope," Helga firmly stated, "She left him about two years ago. I still talk to her now and again, she's done pretty well for herself. Regardless, she'd be the last person to be on Oskar's side at this point."

Arnold nodded, happy that Suzie had moved on. He always knew she could do better. "Ok, so how about we start at the roof and sneak in through my room… your room."

"Our room," Helga winked at him, causing him to fumble his words.

"Wha- Er. Um. The attic room. We'll go in that way and scope the place out? Sound like a plan?"

She nodded, hoping he didn't notice the blush she felt on her face right now. Criminy! She actually said that last bit out loud? And with a wink?

As silently as possible, Arnold and Helga climbed the fire escape to the roof of the Sunset Arms boarding house, as both of them had done so many times before. Climbing to the roof together, however, was a new experience. He made it to the top first, and held out his hand to help his companion up the last few rungs. She didn't need the help, but she wasn't going to say no to an excuse to take his hand. Arnold hoisted her up to meet him on the rooftop.

Once again, at this moment, they were looking into each other's eyes. Regardless of the danger below them and the troubles of the day, they were alone on the rooftop together beneath the stars. They had a job to do, but this feeling, this romantic setting with only the two of them, it was just so distracting.

Unfortunately.

Towards one corner of the rooftop was a small brick structure, which held the doorway to the stairs leading downward into the building. From behind that stepped a middle-aged man in a bowling shirt and a wide-brimmed hat. The old river pirate took several steps toward them, still unnoticed. Eventually he had to speak to get their attention.

"Why hello again, Arnold!" La Sombra called in a mockingly cheerful tone, waving at him with his right hand, in which he held his clearly visible pistol. "So nice of you to join me."

* * *

**To be continued...**


	14. Chapter 14: Casting a Shadow

There are few quicker ways to spoil the romance of an Autumn evening than the sight of your least favorite person in the world walking towards you with a gun in his hand. Arnold and Helga froze in place, watching La Sombra advance on them. He was taking his time, fully aware that he held all the cards now, and enjoying his victory to the fullest.

"Oskar told me that both of you have used the rooftop entrance almost as much as the front door. I was willing to bet that you'd think it was the sneaky way into the building tonight. Looks like I won that little bet."

"La Sombra, you weasel! You're not going to get away with this!" shouted Arnold.

The older man stopped and blinked. "Did you seriously just give me the 'you're not going to get away with this' line, boy? Really? That's just plain disappointing. I was hoping for some witty banter like you see in the movies, and that's what you bring?" He sighed. "How about you, Señorita, got anything better?"

Helga was vibrating with contained anger, but didn't act on it. La Sombra had a gun, which was a massive advantage to begin with. He also had distance and surprise working for him. There was just nothing she could do right now, and that thought only further fueled the boilers of the steam-powered wrath engine churning within her. She gritted her teeth, but said nothing.

"So quiet? It doesn't matter anyway. Your boyfriend here is the one I need alive. I can barter his life for La Corazón. His parents and the green-eyes won't dare refuse me now. Then, finally, I can rid myself of this entire family. You though…"

La Sombra pointed his old German pistol at Helga's chest.

"You, I don't need. In truth, I don't personally care if you live or die, but an associate of mine has a definite preference in the matter."

Arnold leapt in front of Helga, wagering that La Sombra wouldn't risk shooting him to get to her.

"You'll have to go through me first!"

La Sombra shrugged, hesitated for a moment, and then said, "Ok."

The gun lowered, and fired. Arnold's left leg erupted in searing pain. At that moment the world around him was completely eclipsed by the pain of the gunshot would to the muscle of his lower leg. He collapsed to the ground, screaming.

"Arnold!" Helga cried, and dropped to the ground with him. Her instinct was simply to protect him from further harm, but luckily this also protected her for the moment. La Sombra still couldn't get a clean shot at her without possibly hitting Arnold. He stalled for time, waiting for the right opportunity. He also knew that the gunshot would have been heard, so the police could be on his way at any moment. He didn't have much time now, so he started to inch forward impatiently.

Helga momentarily forgot the man with a gun was even there. She looked down at Arnold's leg. Her medical experience was limited to a bit of first aid training, and not much else. She knew Arnold was going to need a hospital soon, if only for the bleeding. She heard the scrape of flow footsteps, and realized that La Sombra was getting closer.

She put her face in her hands and began sobbing. Seemingly oblivious to the danger creeping towards her, she was wailing and sniffling in despair, crying as the gunman grew ever closer. He was only a couple feet away now.

"Don't worry, it'll all be over for you soon." Said La Sombra as he steadied his pistol once more, close enough to be sure about his aim.

Helga rocketed forward, reaching her feet instantly and ramming her shoulder into the man's sternum as she rose. She swept her arm viciously around and drove a knuckle-punch directly into the meaty underside of his left wrist, causing him to lose all sensation in his hand. More importantly, it caused him to drop the gun.

For a split second they locked eyes. There were no tears on her face, and no sign of the red puffiness that usually accompanied tears.

Growling, the young woman swung a powerful punch at his jaw, loosening a few teeth on impact. Another punch connected with his already bruised chest, and a third swung up hard into his eye as his head tilted forward. He staggered backward, and received a fierce kick between the legs, causing him to double over in pain once more. Stepping back once more, he found he couldn't get away. Two more punches brought flashes of pain to his nose, one breaking it badly, the second somewhat straightening it out once again.

Helga paused in her assault, and he took the opportunity to stagger backwards as quickly as he could, desperate to get out of her reach so he could regroup and fight back.

La Sombra stumbled backward against the knee-high brick wall that ran along the outer edge of the rooftop. He stepped up and backward reflexively, trying anything to catch his balance, but it was no good. His arms pinwheeled as he started to tip over the edge. A fall from this height, to the flat concrete of the alleyway below would almost certainly be fatal.

Helga watched this happen. La Sombra was going to fall, he was going to die, and entirely because of a clumsy misstep. He would be gone, their troubles over for good. Some part of her wanted to just stand back and let it happen. There was a stronger feeling inside her, a burst of ice coursing through her veins. This isn't how it should end. This wasn't good enough.

She lunged forward, grabbing the lapels of the older man's bowling shirt and bracing one foot against the brick border for leverage. She pulled him toward her, but only slightly. As long as she held him this way, he wasn't going to fall, but it was likewise impossible for him to regain his balance. He was entirely at her mercy, and both of them knew it. He didn't struggle, he barely breathed, fearing any movement might loosen her grip.

Helga's eyes were like flickering blue-hot flames, the moderately low light of the rooftop making their gleam the brightest thing in La Sombra's world. He stared into them, wordlessly pleading for her to pull him to safety, though he didn't have the nerve to speak.

Helga began speaking in a conversational tone, an unsettling contrast to the blazing fury in her eyes. "You're a bully. You're a thief, a killer, and an amoral scumbag, but at the root of it you're just a bully. You've spent years trying to ruin the lives of three of the best people I've ever met, and all for what? Simple greed? You just want to find a stupid jewel for fame and fortune? You're pathetic."

A few stray hairs had strayed over Helga's left eye, she whipped her head to the side and blew the hair out of her face. The sudden movement made La Sombra cringe, but he was still safe for the moment. Helga saw his reaction, and smiled.

"You took Arnold's family from him, letting a little boy to grow up believing that his parents had just abandoned him. Despite all this torment, all of the hell you put him through, he never let you win. After all of that, he's still the kindest, sweetest, most considerate person I've ever known. Even after all you've done, that silly, amazing boy still has the purest heart you could ever find. He's as close to an angel as you're likely to find on Earth."

Helga pulled him a little closer, almost letting him catch his balance, but not quite.

"I'm going to tell you the real secret now, and I promise you that you're going to be thinking about it for the rest of your life. I love him. I've loved him since the day I met him. Do you know why?"

La Sombra stammered, knowing she demanded a response, "W-why?"

Helga, in her sweetest voice, replied, "Because opposites attract."

With a snarl, she gave a mighty push forward, releasing the river pirate's shirt as she did so.

La Sombra was too startled to scream, only managing to gasp for air on the way down. A fall from this height, to the flat concrete of the alleyway below probably would have been fatal. Instead though, his spine impacted full-force on the unyielding lip of a steel dumpster in the alley. There was a sickening crunching noise barely audible beneath a metallic clang. He hung there, bent backwards at an unnatural angle, before slumping to the ground.

Helga peered down into the alleyway at the unmoving and shattered body for a moment, then nodded once in simple satisfaction. She ran over to her fallen love, who was gritting his teeth and bearing the pain as well as he could. Examining his leg with her limited medical knowledge, all she could really determine is that it was far enough to the side that it seemed to have missed the bone, and with holes on both sides it was clear the bullet had gone all the way through.

Thinking quickly, she grabbed the first strip of cloth she could find and tied it tightly around the wound to slow the bleeding. That done to the best of her ability, she pulled the phone out of her messenger bag and called the number for the boarding house phone. An unfamiliar voice picked up, which was what she had been hoping for.

"Who is t-" the gruff voice began.

"Shut up. Did you hear that crash in the alleyway? That was your boss. Look out the kitchen window if you don't believe me. Take note of the angle his spine is bent at, and just how unlikely it is that he'll be able to sign your paychecks from now on. If I were you, I'd get out of here as fast as you can, because the fuzz are on the way. Your call, of course."

Helga hung up walked over to the edge of the roof once more, counting under her breath. By the time she hit fifteen, one of La Sombra's goons had gone into the alleyway for a closer look. By twenty-five he was running back into the boarding house, and at thirty-five all three men were running back out and piling into the car they had arrived in.

At thirty-seven seconds, the police were there blocking the men from escaping. Helga hadn't actually called them just yet, wanting to be sure the armed thugs left the boarders safely alone first, so they must have been responding to the gunshot.

Helga ran back to Arnold, throwing her arms around his neck and starting to cry for real this time. The adrenaline and rage had left her system, and she suddenly felt weak and vulnerable. All the fear that she had pushed aside earlier caught up to her now that the danger was done. Her long blonde hair fell across his face as she wept.

Arnold started to come back to lucidity. He looked down at his leg to survey the damage. Tied tightly around his aching calf was a pink ribbon. It was stained with blood now, and had quite possibly saved his life.

* * *

**To be concluded… (epilogue)**


End file.
